


String Bracelets

by rochke11



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-25 06:49:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 36,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3800848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rochke11/pseuds/rochke11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Growing up, Clarke, Lexa and Costia spent their summers as best friends at Camp Rothenberg, from when they were seven until they were fifteen.  Now 19, Clarke and Lexa have returned to Camp Rothenberg as camp counselors, but it's been three years since they last saw or spoke to each other.  Both girls are haunted by the last summer they spent at camp together four years earlier and by the death of the girl who brought their trio together.</p><p>Forced to spend the summer as counselors of rival cabins: The Grounders and Arkers, will Clarke and Lexa finally be able to reconcile, and will they finally forgive themselves and each other for what happened that summer four years earlier?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have a full outline for this yet, but my guess is that it's going to be a good bit longer than The Law of Averages. Let me know what y'all think!
> 
> Rated M for future chapters ;)

_“It’s not too late for us to take you back home, you know,” spoke a man as he crouched down to get to the level of his seven-year-old daughter._

  
_His daughter gave him a frustrated look before saying, “I’m going to be fine Daddy.” She huffed and placed her hands on her hips, making her look younger than she actually was. “I’m a big kid now, I can handle summer camp.”_

  
_“I know you can,” the man ruffled his daughter’s curly blonde hair, “But I don’t know if I can handle the summer without you.”_

  
_“I promise to write to you every day,” the girl sighed in return before hugging her father._

  
_“Well not every day,” the father relented, “Make sure you’re spending time making friends and learning how to survive in the wild so we can go camping when you get back.”_

  
_“Really? Will it be just us, or will mom come too?”_

  
_The father waited a moment before responding, “If she can get off work, I’m sure she’d love to. Think about it, right now she’s working extra hard so she can take time off when you get back!” The girl’s mother was a doctor and had been unable to take her to camp with her father._

  
_“Okay,” the blonde nodded._

  
_“Welcome to Camp Rothenberg! Any chance you’re Clarke Griffin or Costia Crewe?” came the voice of a counselor as she approached the father and daughter._  
_“I’m Clarke!” the blonde smiled, raising her hand._

  
_“Great, you’re in my cabin, the Sky Cabin. Why don’t you say goodbye to your dad so we can get you checked in and introduce you to the rest of the cabin? I’m Anya by the way,” she offered her hand to Mr. Griffin who shook it with a smile._

  
_“Have fun kiddo,” Mr. Griffin smiled as he kissed his daughter’s forehead and gave her one last hug before walking away._

  
_“Alright Clarke, it looks like we’re only missing one more Sky Person, so why don’t I bring you over to everyone?” Anya asked with a smile before leading the blonde over to the group of thirteen other seven and eight-year-olds._

 

* * *

 

It had been twelve years since Clarke first step foot on to the Camp Rothenberg grounds. She quickly parked her car in the only parking lot and hustled to the mess hall. She was arriving late to the meeting, having gotten a flat tire on her way to the camp ground and quickly took a seat in the back row in the only empty seat. The girl beside her was around her age, but since she’d never seen her before, she knew she was not a former camper like she was.

  
“Now I know many of you here are former campers turned counselors, in fact I had several of you in my cabins as you grew up, but I’m going to go over the all our traditions and the basic layout of the camp anyway. We don’t want anyone confused for when the campers get here tomorrow,” Anya spoke, holding a clipboard as she looked over the group of fourteen counselors, nearly all college students, not failing to notice the blonde coming in late. She’d been both surprised and excited when she’d read Clarke’s application to become a counselor. After everything that had happened, she wasn’t sure that Clarke would ever want to return.

  
Half listening to Anya, Clarke craned her head, looking around for Raven and Octavia. She’d met the two that year at college, the three of them had been in the same freshman orientation group and had become friends immediately. She’d hit a slight rough patch with Raven after they figured out the guys they’d been seeing were actually the same guy. Eventually though, they took their anger out on Finn Collins together, solidifying their own friendship. And when it became time to find summer jobs, Clarke had suggested the three of them work at Camp Rothenberg together. Raven and Octavia had carpooled to the camp together, living only one town over from each other, and Clarke finally spotted them two rows ahead of her. Octavia turned around and quickly waved at her and Clarke waved back.

  
“As I was saying before Miss. Clarke Griffin interrupted me with her tardiness,” Anya called her out with a smirk, causing everyone in the room to turn and face her. Everyone except for one girl seated in the front row. “Each cabin will be assigned two counselors, to both deal with the fifteen girls each cabin holds adequately, and to account for the one night a month each counselor has off. The seven and eight-year-old are in the Sky Cabin with Mel and Fox. The nine and ten-year-olds are split between the Ice and Fire cabins, with Luna and Caris in Ice and Roma and Tris in Fire.”

  
As Anya began to split them up with the campers, Clarke sighed with relief after she assigned the positions through the ten-years-olds. While she was excited to be a counselor, the last thing she wanted to do was spend the summer dealing with homesickness, something that the girls under ten seemed to deal with the most. Besides, the older kids were more fun.

  
Anya continued to give out assignments, “The eleven and twelve-year-olds will be with Monroe and Harper in Boat and Roma and Tris in Mountain.”  
Clarke grinned as she realized that not only would she be in either Ground or Ark with the oldest campers, and therefore the most fun campers, but that Raven and Octavia would be as well. And one of the two would be her co-counselor.

  
“Lastly, in the thirteen and up we have the Ground and Ark cabins. In the Ark Cabin we’ll have Clarke and Raven, and in the Ground Cabin we’ll have Octavia and Lexa,” Anya finished.

  
Clarke’s brain immediately began to tune out Anya’s voice, focusing on the fact that she’d said Lexa’s name. Lexa wasn’t the most common name, and Clarke had no doubt in that moment, that the one head that hadn’t turn to face her belonged to Lexa Woods. The same Lexa Woods who had been one of her best friends for the nine years she had been a camper at Camp Rothenberg. Together, they’d been two thirds of the three musketeers. Together, the three of them had ruled the camp summer after summer. But Clarke had never thought she’d see Lexa again, not after what happened to the last third of their trio. Not after everything that happened their last summer at camp, the summer they were fifteen. Not after Lexa refused to respond to any email Clarke sent her.

  
They’d been best friends for nearly a decade before it all broke apart. It was too painful for Clarke to remember Lexa the last time they saw each other, at the funeral, but she had no trouble remembering the first day they met. That first day of camp, twelve years earlier.

 

* * *

 

 _After Anya had led Clarke over to the group of seven and eight year olds that were waiting for their final cabin mate, Clarke looked around at the group. The thirteen other girls seemed to mostly have already started forming groups. Or maybe they’d come in groups. Clarke’s parents had asked if she wanted any of her friends to come with her to camp, so that she knew someone, but Clarke’s best friend was Wells Jaha, and he wasn’t exactly allowed at the all-girls camp._  
_Clarke sat alone in the group, until Anya finally returned with their last cabin mate in tow. The redhead had two long braids and carried a duffel bag on one shoulder as she clutched a large stuffed elephant to her chest. Clarke was relieved that she wasn’t the only one who brought a stuffed animal, though her bear was stuffed in the bottom of her own duffel._

  
_“Alright girls, let’s head over to our campsite,” Anya gestured for them to follow her. The girls gathered up their belongings and followed their counselor. Sky Cabin was closest to the mess hall, purposefully so as they were the youngest campers. After they arrived at their site, Anya paused and spoke, “So this is Sky Cabin. As you can see, we have a main cabin right here that holds the bathrooms and mine and Indra’s bedroom. We also have a few picnic tables and our campfire site right here. If you look around your tents.” Clarke pivoted her head to view the five tents, encompassing them in a circle. The tents were large and sturdy, elevated on platforms. They were permanent fixtures at the camp. “You’ll be three to a tent. And from past experience, I’ve found that you all end up unhappy unless I let you choose your tent mates. So get in to five groups of three.” Anya stepped back to stand beside an older woman with short cropped hair, Indra. Indra was their second counselor, but she’d hardly said a word to the girls yet. She scared Clarke a bit._

  
_As Clarke had been looking around, everyone had already grouped off to form tents. For a second she thought she was the only one who hadn’t until she noticed to other girls standing by themselves. The first was a girl with light brown, curly hair that made her look like a poodle, the second was the redhead with the elephant. It was the redheaded girl who initiated their trio._

  
_“Do you guys want to tent together?” she asked, as if they had a choice in the matter and weren’t the only ones left._

  
_“Sure,” Clarke smiled, approaching her, as the brunette did as well, nodding. “I’m Clarke,” she introduced herself, extending her arm just like her dad taught her._  
_“I’m Costia,” the redhead grinned, adjusting the position of her elephant before extending her own hand in return, shaking it._

  
_Both Costia and Clarke turned to the other girl who finally approached them and in a soft voice said without offering to shake either of their hand, “Lexa.”_  
_They started as the three girls who had no other friends, but by the end of the first week, they were inseparable. Costia’s outgoing personality had already start pulling Lexa out of her shell, and had gotten Clarke laugh more times a day than she had before. It wasn’t long before their tent became the place to be, and the rest of the Sky People carved invitations to their tent._

  
_They began the summer alone, but it wasn’t long before everyone knew them as The Three Musketeers._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clexa finally speak and Lexa remembers her first few years at camp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! Thanks so much for the support so far! Hope you enjoy the flashbacks and beginning of the slow burn!

_Lexa had been at Camp Rothenberg for only two days when she first got homesick. After spending the morning taking the swim test at the lake, Sky Cabin had gone to lunch then returned back to their campsite to take showers before art class. While the rest of her cabin mates hopped into the showers in groups for expediency, Lexa had returned to her tent. It wasn’t that she was uncomfortable showering with everyone else, after all she was seven years old and had nothing to hide, but she was starting to miss the comforts of home. She missed her parents, her cat and even her younger brother Artigas._

  
_Sitting at the lunch table with her entire cabin enjoying grilled cheese sandwiches, Lexa had simply gnawed on the crust of hers. Her mom was a health nut and Lexa had never had a grilled cheese sandwich before, and after one bite, she’d decided that she didn’t like the gooey sandwich._

  
_So while everyone else showered, Lexa pulled out her new stationary and started to write a letter to her parents, pleading them to send her food. Even if she knew it was against the rules. She’d just signed her name when Costia and Clarke entered the tent, still dressed in their bathing suits, but with dry lake hair. They obviously hadn’t showered yet._

  
_“I dunno Clarke, do you really think we should let her have it?” Costia smiled, looking at Clarke. “I mean, do we think she’s cool enough?” Costia nodded her head towards Lexa._

  
_“I think so,” Clarke grinned back before turning to Lexa. “Lexa guess what.”_

  
_“What?” Lexa asked as her stomach growled and she blushed._

  
_“Well Cos and I snuck back in to the mess hall after lunch and made ourselves some sandwiches that are a lot better than those gross grilled cheeses.” Clarke withdrew her hands from behind her back, holding up a sandwich in each hand._

  
_Costia followed Clarke’s lead and held up a sandwich as well. “It’s peanut butter and fluff,” she grinned. From the smudge of peanut butter blending in with her freckles, Lexa gathered that Costia had already had some of the sandwich._

_“And we decided that you’re cool enough to have one as well,” Clarke’s eyes sparkled as she held out a sandwich to Lexa._

  
_“What’s fluff?” she asked, a look of confusion on her face._

  
_Both Clarke and Costia gasped and simultaneously exclaimed, “What?!” Lexa shrugged._

  
_“Dude. This is about to be the best sandwich you’ve ever had in your entire life,” Costia asserted, gesturing for Lexa to take a bite._

  
_The brunette took a cautious bite of her sandwich before chewing and swallowing. Her face then erupted in to a wide smile._

 

* * *

 

Lexa originally hadn’t want to return to Camp Rothenberg. As far as she was concerned, if she never heard it mentioned again, she would be okay. Even the years worth of her favorite memories were now clouded by what happened to Costia. But when Anya emailed her out of nowhere, asking if she would come back as a counselor, as one of the counselors they’d planned on hiring got a better job, Lexa responded saying that she would.

  
Lexa’s parents had thought it was a terrible idea, and that it would set her back in her recovery, but Lexa was starting to wonder if maybe returning to the place that formed her childhood would actually be beneficial. It could help her move on.

  
What Lexa hadn’t been expecting, however, was to be sitting in the mess hall listening to Anya pause her introduction to the counselors by staring at her as she called out the name of the late counselor. Clarke Griffin. The shock that rattled Lexa’s entire body paralyzed her. She couldn’t bring herself to turn around and see if it really was Clarke. She knew that it was.

  
The brunette barely paid attention to the rest of Anya’s speech, only registering the fact that she was going to be a Grounder counselor and Clarke was going to be an Arker. She knew Anya had done it on purpose. Her only consolation was that while their cabins would be working a lot together, at least she wouldn’t have to share a room with the girl who once knew her every thought, hope and dream.

  
Before long, everyone was pushing back their chairs and getting in to groups of two or four. It took Lexa moment before registering the fact that they were meeting with their co-counselors. So for Lexa, this meant with her fellow Grounder counselor as well as the Arkers. She took a deep breath and stood up.

  
As Lexa turned around, her eyes were immediately drawn to the blonde who was rearranging the chairs by her to form a circle of four. Her hair was shorter than the last time Lexa saw her, now just reaching past her shoulders. It suited her, Lexa thought.

  
In the past three years, Lexa had learned how to compose herself fully, how to put on a mask of indifference, and that’s exactly what she did as she approached Clarke and the two brunettes who were sitting down with her.

“Hi Clarke,” Lexa offered her once best friend a polite smile.

  
Lexa watched a series of emotions pass over Clarke’s face. Clarke had almost always been incredibly easy for Lexa to read. She could count on one hand the amount of times Clarke had surprised her. So Lexa wasn’t entirely surprised when Clarke reached forward and pulled Lexa in to a hug.

  
“Lexa, I had no idea you’d be here! It’s so good to see you!” she gushed honestly.

  
“Wait, are you Camp Lexa?” asked one of the brunettes, “The same Lexa that is in every single one of Clarke’s camp stories?”

 

* * *

 

_Lexa spent all of second grade running home from the bus stop to check her mailbox. She, Costia and Clarke had been writing to each other almost nonstop since the day they left camp. Their writing still wasn’t the great, but it didn’t matter. They wrote to each other about their school friends and teachers, but mostly they wrote about the events from the previous summer and how excited they were for the next summer. They were beyond excited to no longer be the youngest campers._

  
_The day finally arrived when they were all dropped off at Camp Rothenberg. She’d barely gotten out of her car when Lexa started looking around her friends. She spotted Costia first who was quickly running away from her mother toward her, just as another car pulled in beside hers. The silver car had barely pulled to a stop, before the back door was opened and Clarke came stumbling out. The three girls laughed as they fell into a group hug._

  
_They each quickly said goodbye to their families; Lexa to her parents and brother, Clarke to her dad and Costia to her mom, before they hurried to find out if Anya was going to be their counselor again. She was._

 

* * *

 

Lexa offered a polite smile at the unnamed brunette and extended her hand towards her, “Lexa Woods,” she introduced herself.

  
The girl shook her hand in return and said, “Octavia Blake, your co-counselor and college friend of Clarke’s.”

  
Lexa took in the new information and waited for the last girl to introduce herself. The other brunette stood up and extended her hand first, “Raven Reyes,” she said simply, “Also Clarke’s college friend, and the reason she didn’t fail intro to mechanical engineering.”

  
Octavia chuckled as Clarke elbowed Raven in the side while still laughing. Lexa wasn’t used to seeing Clarke with friends other than herself and Costia. She knew all about Wells, Clarke’s best friend from home, but since their circles never intersected, she’d never met him. She briefly wondered if Clarke was still friends with Wells and what she had been doing during the missing three years, but the thought was quickly replaced with the decision that she would not get close to Clarke again that summer. She couldn’t afford to. She’d loved the girl since she was seven, and love was weakness. Even if it was just the love of friendship, nothing more.

  
“I guess we should start talking about our plans for the girls this summer, and any events we want to start planning,” Clarke suggested. Lexa nodded and took a seat in between Octavia and Raven, with Clarke directly across from her. Three years had passed and Clarke obviously looked older. And the shorter hair framed her face in a way Lexa thought suited her well. If she was being honest, it was more like four years since she last was this close to Clarke. The brief look they shared three years previously hardly counted.

  
“What kind of activities did you guys do when you were here?” Raven asked, looking between Clarke and Lexa.

  
It was then that Lexa realized her eyes had not left Clarke’s in over a minute, and quickly tore them away to look at Raven. “Well it depended on the year and what cabin we were in,” she spoke formally, “However, when we were Grounders for three years, we had water balloon fights, a paint fight, we played manhunt several times and of course there was capture the egg.” It took all Lexa’s nerve not to smile at the memories of her last suggestion.

  
“Capture the egg?” Octavia asked, “Is that like capture the flag?”

  
“Yeah,” Clarke clarified, “But with an egg instead of a flag. It always ends with the winners getting to crush eggs on the losers’ heads. Though it sometimes ends in more than that.” She immediately looked to Lexa, and briefly Lexa felt her nonchalant facade fall. A moment of mixed emotion, happiness and hurt, showed on her face. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” Clarke quickly recovered.

  
The moment passed and Lexa recomposed herself, ignoring Clarke’s comment, “That is always the last event of the summer. We’ll be having separate s’mores nights and such, but once a week Grounders and Arkers will combine for some bigger event. And because it’s a twelve week program, we’ll need to decide on eleven more events.”

 

* * *

 

Lexa spent the next two days getting ready for the campers with Octavia and the rest of the counselors, occasionally meeting with Clarke and Raven to go over their plans for combined activities. Since Clarke’s slip up, Lexa had noticed that Clarke was definitely more cautious about how she approached Lexa.

  
There was a part of Lexa that knew how easy it would be to slip back in to that friendship that formed her as a person, but she also knew how dangerous that was. After all, if Lexa had stopped her relationship with Costia after their last summer of camp, Costia would still be alive.

  
Finally, opening day arrived and Lexa donned her Camp Rothenberg t-shirt, ready to greet the campers. She’d always loved the excitement of arrival day. When she was a camper, Lexa would never be able to sleep the night before arrival day, annoying her parents to the point that they were ready to get rid of her.  
The camp was abuzz with campers hugging old friends and saying goodbye to their parents by mid-morning. Lexa could clearly remember each arrival day like they happened the day before. Not even Costia’s death could totally cloud them.

  
After checking in a girl and her sister, Lexa found herself looking out over the group of campers and their families and smiled. She could feel how odd it was on her face, and stopped.

  
“It’s nice to see you smile,” came Clarke’s voice as she stepped up next to her.

  
Lexa contemplated walking away, but instead she responded, “I always loved arrival days.”

  
“Same,” the blonde returned, quickly giving the brunette a side hug. The hug caused Lexa to tense up, but before she could do anything about it, three girls came running towards them with concerned looks on their faces.

  
“A tragedy has occurred!” exclaimed the clear mouthpiece of the three, a girl with braids and dirty blonde hair. “Me, I’m Charlotte, and Reese were placed in Grounders, but Tris was put with the Arkers! This isn’t okay! We NEED to be together. It’s absolutely so important. We’re best friends you see.”

  
For the second time that day, the second time in a long time, Lexa smiled at the girl.

 

* * *

 

_It was the Trio’s third arrival day, and for the first time their age group was being split between two cabins with the influx of more campers their age. Costia had arrived first to find that while she and Clarke had been placed in the Ice Cabin, Lexa had been placed in Fire._

  
_After Clarke and Lexa had arrived, Costia had quickly grabbed their arms and dragged them over to Indra, who was now in charge of the camp. They knew that Indra didn’t like them very much, but it was a serious situation._

  
_“We need to move Lexa in to Ice!” Costia had demanded, her face nearly as red as her hair._

  
_After some arguing that involved Indra, the Trio as well as their parents, it was determined that Lexa would be able to switch in to Ice, seeing that they’d just start causing more trouble if the three were separated. The girls were already starting to be known as pranksters, and Indra conceded under the agreement that they wouldn’t pull any pranks that year._

  
_The Trio all nodded and shook Indra’s hand in agreement, meanwhile they each held their left hands behind their backs, fingers crossed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> madgirlbackhome.tumblr.com


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke remembers her first real fight with Lexa and vows to get her friendship back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, enjoy!

After introductions to the camp and its rules and the annual arrival day bonfire, the counselors had finally gotten all their charges in to their tents for bed. While all the flashlights had been turned out though, not a single one of the counselors was naive enough to think that the campers were actually sleeping. As long as they didn’t cause a ruckus though, everything would be fine.

  
That night, after double checking that all the Arkers were in their tents, Clarke returned to the Ark cabin she shared with Raven. She was still getting used to the feeling of staying in a cabin rather than a tent, not to mention the fact that the layout of the Art site was a mirror image of the Ground site. Because of this, Clarke had already been turning right in places she should have been turning left, and gotten turned around several times. It made sense though, because when she was a camper she was a Grounder for three years, never an Arker.

  
Returning to her cabin, Clarke found Raven sprawled on the bottom bunk, reading some obscure book Clarke had never heard of. The one major drawback to being in the cabin was the bunks. And of course Clarke was in the top bunk, because once Raven took off her prosthetics for the night, it would be too much of an effort for her to get up to the top. Sure, she could probably do it easily, but she’d milked her situation so that she wouldn’t have to.

  
“So I saw you talking to Lexa during check in earlier,” the engineering major stated, not bothering to look up from her book.

  
“Well we do work together, so talking does happen sometimes,” the blonde quipped back.

  
Raven folded over the corner of the page she was on, shut her book and looked up at Clarke. “You both need to figure yourselves out and start acting like friends again. I mean I get it, Costia was Lexa’s girlfriend when she died, but she was also your best friend. The three of you were best friends. You can’t just pretend like it never happened.”

  
“She’s different now though,” Clarke sighed as she sat on the floor next to Raven’s bed.

  
“Of course she is,” Raven turned to lie on her side so that she could look down at Clarke on the floor, “Not only do people change after a few years, but I mean, she was driving when she got in to the car accident that killed her girlfriend. That changes a person.”

  
Clarke groaned and lied back on the ground, “She was always the sweet one. We were all the pranksters, but Costia was the headstrong one, I was the creative one and Lexa was the logical, but kind one. And now it’s like she’s got a perpetual stick up her ass.”

  
“Have you talked to her, about Costia?” Raven asked. It was rare that Clarke brought up any memories to do with Lexa or Costia from their last year at camp, or Costia’s death the following summer and was cautious when bringing up the topic with her.

  
Clarke shook her head while remaining on the ground, “I flew down to Florida for the funeral and she wouldn’t even talk to me there. I texted, called and emailed her countless times that summer, but she didn’t respond to me once. So I stopped.”

  
“Maybe you should try again, now that it’s been a few years. I think you both need to get past it so you can be friends again,” Raven suggested, “And so that you stop acting so damn awkward around each other.”

  
Clarke grunted in response.

 

* * *

 

_Over the years, the Trio got in to lots of silly fights. Generally they were about waking one of the others up too early or pushing them in the lake when they weren’t paying attention, but the summer they were ten, they got in to a fight that lasted nearly a week. Which, in camp time was nearly a lifetime._   
_It was during the paint war, six weeks in to the summer. The Ice kids were given blue paint and the Fire kids were given red, and the goal was to get as much paint on everyone as possible. Basically it was just a free for all._

  
_The Trio had decided to take their paint and quickly climb the nearby trees, ready to drop it on unsuspecting passerbys. After awhile they started to get bored, as nobody was walking beneath them._

  
_“You should push Lexa off so we can get her,” Clarke whispered to Costia, seeing that Lexa was one branch closer to the ground than they were._

  
_Costia grinned and nodded before reaching out to push Lexa, who wasn’t paying attention. She’d meant to give her a soft push, but she lost balance and ended up shoving Lexa off the branch, falling down alongside her. Costia managed to land on her feet unarmed, but the moment Lexa hit the ground and they heard the snap, they knew it was bad._

  
_Lexa immediately screamed out in pain, clutching her arm to her chest. Clarke jumped down from her own branch and ran to Lexa. “Costia! Go get a counselor!” Clarke yelled. Costia quickly nodded and ran away._

  
_Lexa came back from the ER later that night with a cast that went past her elbow. As soon as Anya and Lexa got back, Costia and Clarke immediately went to see if she was okay, but Lexa refused to talk to them. As much as they tried to talk to her and apologize, Lexa didn’t relent and Anya told the girls to just let her be for the night. So when they heard Lexa’s muffled cries that night, Costia and Clarke stayed in their beds._

  
_Lexa refused to speak to Clarke and Costia for a week. She already wasn’t allowed to go swimming or do any activities that could cause her more harm. Which meant no rock climbing, hiking or anything else that the rest of their cabin was doing._

  
_It took Costia and Clarke the entire week to decide that they needed to do something big to get Lexa to talk to them again and forgive them. That Friday, Costia and Clarke snuck out of their tent once they were sure Lexa was asleep and snuck in to the art room next to the mess hall. There, they drew signs and made dozens of cards for Lexa. They attached each of the cards and signs to string and made a large banner that said, “We miss our friend,” outlined in macaroni letters. It was nearly three in the morning when they returned to their tent and quietly hung the signs and cards from the ceiling of their tent from the string that was attached to them. They hung the banner on the inside flap of their tent’s entrance._

  
_After less than four hours of sleep, Costia and Clarke woke up with the morning camp alarm and immediately looked over at Lexa, who was groggily waking up, struggling to sit up with her broken arm casted at such a weird angle. They cautiously watched as she took in all the decorations that had occurred overnight._

  
_Unable to take the silence any longer, Costia finally spoke, “We’re sorry Lex. I shouldn’t have pushed you.”_

  
_“And if you want to break our arms in return, that’s totally okay,” Clarke added, “We can’t be the Three Musketeers without you.”_

  
_After another moment of painful silence, Lexa finally nodded._

  
_Costia quickly got up and offered her arm to the brunette, “Alright, break it. But be quick about it please.”_

  
_Costia’s offer caused Lexa to laugh for the first time that week. Then they all devolved into fits of laughter._

  
_The summer the Three Musketeers were ten, they spent five weeks not once going in to the lake. Once the girls made up, Costia and Clarke refused to do any activity Lexa wasn’t allowed to do because of her arm. Because of this, they spent a lot of time in the art room, often with macaroni. That was also the summer Clarke decided she wanted to be an artist._

 

* * *

 

The first week of camp went by quickly and without any major upsets. Clarke was exhausted from having to keep up with her kids and plan activities for them. She was also the art counselor, which meant that while her Arkers were doing activities such as swimming in the lake, Clarke was with one of the other cabins in the art room, working on some project.

  
Friday came and as Clarke handed out buckets of macaroni to the Boat girls, she had an idea. Instead of wandering around helping the girls with their projects like she usually did, Clarke worked on a project of her own. She was a little rusty in her use of macaroni as a medium for her art, but she made it work.  
When the day ended, the blonde carefully wrapped up her project and put it in her backpack. She told Raven her plan at dinner and she assured Clarke that it was a good idea, even offering to do final tent checks that night.

  
While Raven did the final tent checks, Clarke withdrew her project from her backpack before walking through the trees to the Grounder campsite. She easily found her way to the Grounder cabin and knocked on the door.

  
“I swear Charlotte, if you set another stink bomb I’m going to pee in your shampoo,” came Octavia’s voice as she opened the cabin door. “Oh. Hey Clarke.” She said, after discovering it was Clarke at the door and not her troublemaking camper.

  
“I don’t think I want to know,” Clarke chuckled.

  
“No, no you don’t,” Octavia shook her head, “So what’s up? You wanna hang?”

  
Clarke craned her neck in to the doorway, trying to see if Lexa was there, “Actually I came to talk to Lexa, is she here?”

  
“Clarke?” came the voice that Clarke once knew so well.

  
Lexa was wearing her glasses and her curly hair was topped on her head in a messy bun and it took Clarke a moment before she was able to respond, “Can we talk?”

  
Her nod was hesitant, but a yes nonetheless. Seeing she clearly wasn’t wanted, Octavia retreated back in to the cabin and Lexa quickly threw on a sweatshirt and flip flops before joining Clarke outside. She gestured Clarke towards the picnic tables.

  
They sat across from each other and Lexa broke the silence first, “What would you like to discuss?” Lexa’s formal speech confused Clarke. Lexa never used to speak so formally.

  
“I uhh, I made you this,” Clarke took her project and passed it across the table to the brunette. On a piece of plain paper, written in macaroni was the phrase, ‘I want you to be my friend again’.

  
Clarke watched as Lexa’s lips turned up at the sign, obviously remembering the banner Clarke and Costia had made for her all those years ago.

  
“It’s just too weird, being here with you and not being your friend,” the blonde admitted.

“It’s different though,” Lexa returned.

  
Knowing that Lexa was talking about Costia’s absence Clarke nodded, “I miss her too you know. She was my best friend for years. Just like you. And when I lost her, I lost you too.”

  
She wasn’t sure what Lexa was thinking, but Clarke hoped they could get on the same page for their friendship. “I am sorry you feel that way,” she responded. She took a deep breath before continuing, “It took me a long time to get over her death. I blamed myself for a long time, and some times I still do. Even though logically I know it wasn’t my fault. I did not think it would be fair for me to remain friends with you without her.”

  
“I think she’d be more mad at us for not staying friends,” Clarke spoke. “She’s probably looking down on us with her hands on her hips and her face turning that red it always did when she was angry, telling us to make up already.” Clarke could picture it in her mind.

  
Clearly Lexa was imagining it as well because she laughed. “I think you’re right,” she admitted. “I think we should try and be friends again.”

  
Clarke grinned because that was all she wanted. She wasn’t ready to tell Lexa that she also blamed herself for Costia’s death, because that would mean admitting to Lexa what really happened on the Fourth of July when they were fifteen. But she really wanted her friend back. “So,” Clarke began, “Lexa, dear old and current friend of mine, fill me in. How was the end of high school for you? Where do you go to college? Tell me everything.” She leaned forward and rested her chin on her hand.

  
Thus began part two of their friendship. They were no longer two thirds of the Trio, but rather two friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> madgirlbackhome.tumblr.com


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Water Day has arrived, and it's full of competition between the Arkers and Grounders  
> spoiler: clexa get wet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plan is to get another 2 chapters out tomorrow :)

The summers at Camp Rothenberg always seemed to be stuck in a weird time vortex. While sometimes it seemed like they had been there forever, the weeks tended to fly by. By the end of the third week, it was already time for one of the biggest days, water day. It used to be held on the Fourth of July, but Anya had decided to separate the two holidays so that there were more events, therefore Water Day was being held on June 30th.

  
“Alright girls, now it’s time to get our game faces on. This is the first competition day of the summer, and we need to show those Arkers that they don’t mess with us Grounders. Now who’s ready?” Octavia gave her pump up speech as her campers all formed a circle around her. They were all dressed in matching Ground Cabin t-shirts over their bathing suits, and Octavia had even used black face paint that she had bought for the very occasion to draw warrior lines on the girl’s cheeks. She and Lexa sported matching stripes.

  
The girls hooted and raised their arms cheering, “GROUNDERS!” Meanwhile, the Arkers on the other side of the field cheered for the Ark Cabin.

  
“Everybody in your lines, it’s time to start the water balloon toss!” came Anya’s voice over the speaker system, “First up, we have Grounders versus Arkers.”

  
Lexa stood across from Octavia, both of them keeping on their stern game faces. The rules stated that the pairs would be lined up in alternating order, so on one side of Lexa and Octavia were two thirteen-year-old Arkers, and on the other side walked up Raven and Clarke.

  
“It sucks that you’re paired with butter fingers Octavia, because you and the rest of your cabin are going down,” Clarke taunted.

  
“Our girls take this seriously, while you guys were putting on silly make up, ours were practicing,” Raven gestured to the warrior stripes on their cheeks.  
“What’s this about you being a butter fingers?” Octavia asked seriously, glaring at Lexa.

  
Lexa had always thought she was competitive, but Octavia redefined what it meant to be competitive. She was worse than Costia was. “Just ignore them, they think they can get in our hands, but it isn’t going to work,” Lexa kept eye contact with Octavia, not even looking to her side where the other counselors were standing.

  
Clarke took a step closer to Lexa and leaned forward, whispering in her ear, “Let’s hope you don’t fuck up under pressure.” Though the others could hear Clarke, Lexa knew the blonde was purposely trying to get in her head, and as Clarke lips brushed the side of her head as she spoke, a shiver went down Lexa’s spine as she remembered what Clarke was referring to.

 

* * *

 

_Out of the corner of her eye, Lexa watched as Harper dropped the balloon that Clarke had tossed her just slightly too high. This was it. It was down to her and Costia. Though the day wasn’t over, and there were still a few more activities, if they lost that game, there would be no coming back. The Boat girls had enough points that even if Lexa and the rest of the Mountain girls won all the other games, the Boat girls would still win. She heard another balloon crash and they were in sudden death. It was Lexa and Costia versus two twelve-year-old Boat Girls._

  
_“You got this!” Lexa heard Clarke yell, cheering them on with the rest of their cabin._

  
_“Ready?” Costia asked, making eye contact with Lexa, who nodded before the redhead tossed her the balloon. The balloon slipped out of Lexa’s hands, but managed to make it to the ground without breaking. Everyone sighed in relief as Lexa tossed the balloon back and Costia carefully cradled it._

  
_Both girls took a step back along with their opponents. Costia tossed the balloon in the perfect arc across the grass and the cabin mates all held their breaths. Lexa reached up her hands, ready to cradle it down to the ground. It landed softly in her hands and she gave way to it. She sighed in relief. The brunette then started to crouch, readying herself to throw the balloon, when the slick rubber fell away from her fingers and landed on the ground with a splash of water that hit her directly in the face._

  
_Cheers came from the Boat girls and exclamations of despair from Lexa’s cabin mates. “LEXA!” Costia exclaimed in anger._

  
_Lexa was still in shock as to what had happened, “I’m sorry!” she gasped._

  
_“Whatever butter fingers,” Costia rolled her eyes as she walked away from Lexa and the other Mountain girls._

  
_Lexa groaned and Clarke approached her, “You lasted longer than I did, so I’ll give you that butter fingers. And don’t worry about Cos, you know how competitive she gets on competition days. She’ll be over it by dinner.”_

  
_Clarke was right. By dinner that night, Costia was laughing alongside Lexa and Clarke in the mess hall. Though she and Clarke did spread butter on their fingers at one point, teasing the brunette._

 

* * *

 

Both pairs of counselors were out of the water balloon toss by the third round. They each blamed the other for distracting them to the point of breaking the rules. They complained to Anya, who simply told them to grow up and cheer on their teams.

  
Charlotte and Reese won the game for the Grounders, and the moment the last Arker balloon broke, the Grounders all rushed at the fourteen-year-olds, lifting them up in the air and chanting their names over and over.

  
Meanwhile, Raven gathered her cabin together as Clarke yelled to the Grounders, “This is only round one! The day isn’t over yet!”

  
Lexa rolled her eyes at Clarke as Octavia taunted back, “Bet you wish you were still a Grounder, huh?”

  
The competitions continued through the day and by dinner they were tied. “So do we just finish the day tied?” Octavia asked Lexa in between bites of her macaroni and cheese, “Because I’m totally not okay with that.”

  
“It’s never happened before that I know of,” Lexa shrugged back in response, “But we’ll have to have some kind of tie breaker.

  
Just as Lexa was about to offer some suggestions, Anya walked to the front microphone and announced the tie-breaker, “In case you are deaf or fell asleep under a rock today, the Grounders and Arkers are currently tied in points for today’s competition. Because the day only counts as a win for one cabin in each age group, there will be a tie breaking competition.”

  
Everyone cheered, not just the Arkers and Grounders. Because they were the oldest girls, all the other girls at the camp were invested in the Grounder/Arker competition. The competition between the two cabins was a tight one every summer, and the rivalry was well known.

  
Anya held up a hand, gesturing for everyone to calm down before continuing, “The tie-breaker will be simple, a swimming relay on the lake, thirty minutes after dinner ends. Also, it will be campers only. No counselors.”

 

The words were barely out of the camp leader’s mouth before both the Arker and Grounder tables erupted in to discussion. “Okay, it’s going to be all about the order we go in,” Octavia shushed her campers, forcing them to listen to her, “We’re going to need our strongest swimmers at the head and tail.”

  
“Logically though, it shouldn’t make a difference,” Lexa interrupted. “Everyone will be swimming, so the order shouldn’t matter.”

  
The girls all looked blankly at Lexa before returning there gaze to the girl who was obviously more engaging as a leader. “Anyway,” Octavia continued, “Tris and Reese are probably strongest, so let’s have Tris go first and Reese go last.”

  
The thirty minutes post-dinner past quickly as the girls psyched themselves up for the competition. Finally, the cabins both lined up on the dock while the rest of the camp stood on the shore, excited about the competition.

  
It was a simple relay. A girl from each team would dive off the dock, swim out about fifty yards to where the dividing line was and swim back. The next girl would be allowed to dive off the moment the first placed both her hand on top of the dock.

  
As soon as Tris and the Arker starter dove off the dock, everyone immediately started cheering them on. It was almost as if they were at the Olympics, that’s how much they each cared about winning for their cabin.

  
“Lexa?” Lexa heard Reese call to her from the back of the line. Lexa walked to the back of the line to see what the young teen wanted. As soon as Lexa was in earshot Reese continued, “I don’t think I can go last anymore. This is way too much pressure.”

  
Reese was one of the three popular girls in the Grounder cabin, and Lexa had yet to hear anything other than sass come from her mouth. Before the Grounder counselor had the chance to respond though, the girl in front of Reese in line spoke. It was Charlotte, one of Reese’s two best friends. “I can go last if you want me to Reese, but there’s nothing to be nervous about. You’re on the swim team in your town, you’re going to be great.”

  
“You think so?” Reese asked hesitantly.

  
“For sure bro,” Charlotte responded with a smile, before hesitantly leaning in and kissing Reese’s cheek.

  
Reese seemed unfazed, as they were clearly close friends, but Lexa noticed a blush start on Charlotte’s cheek as they both got back on line.

  
“You saw that too, didn’t you?” asked Clarke as she sidled up alongside Lexa, discreetly nodding her head towards Charlotte and Reese.

  
Started by Clarke’s appearance by her side, it took Lexa a moment to respond, “What?”

  
Clarke rolled her eyes at her old friend, saying, “Charlotte is totally in to Reese, and Reese has no idea.”

  
“How do you know? And what’s to say that you aren’t coming over here just to distract me from cheering on my team?” Lexa folded her arms across her chest.  
“Trust me, I know.” Clarke’s assertion was so honest, that Lexa had to shrug in response, briefly wondering if there was another story from the missing years she hadn’t heard from Clarke. Or maybe she was talking about Finn, the boy Clarke had spent a lot of time telling Lexa about.

  
Realizing that half her girls had already swam, Lexa turned back to the race and cheered each girl on by name. By the time Charlotte dove in to the lake, the teams were neck and neck, and when she returned to the dock, the Grounders were only several strokes ahead of the Arkers. But moments after Reese dove in to the lake, they knew they were going to win. Reese swam, barely coming up for air and never checking to see where her competition was (twenty feet behind her).

  
The Grounders all cheered like crazy and went wild the moment Reese’s hand landed on the dock. Tris and Charlotte each grabbed on of the girl’s arms and pulled her on to the dock. “Did we win?” Reese asked innocently, before turning around to see that the last Arker was only just reaching the dock.

  
Charlotte pulled Reese in to a hug which Tris quickly jumped in on, followed by the rest of the Grounders as they cheered.

  
“Alright girls, shake hands with the Arkers and show them what it’s like to be a good winner,” Octavia announced, gathering the girls. “Show them that the Grounders are the best girls around, and that’s why we win.

  
Lexa rolled her eyes at her overly competitive co-counselor, but got in line to shake hands with the Arkers nevertheless. Lexa went through the line, telling the girls they each did a good job until she shook hands with Raven and Clarke, “It was a valiant effort, but it seems like the Arkers are just not quite up to our talent,” she smirked.

  
“Oh?” Clarke cocked an eyebrow, “Last I checked your campers were the ones that won here, you just stood there and watched while they swam across the lake.”

  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lexa crossed her arms across her chest.

  
“It means that you barely even got wet today,” Clarke continued to smirk and took a step closer to Lexa. Lexa registered what Clarke was about to do a moment too late, because they were standing at the edge of the dock and it took the blonde only one quick shove to push her off the dock and in to the water. She did, however, have enough time to grab on to Clarke’s arm and grab her in with her.

  
Lexa sunk in to the lake and kicked her way to the surface, gasping in surprise. “Really Clarke?” she asked after the blonde surfaced in the water beside her a moment later, “Is that really the kind of thing you should be doing in front of your campers. Real mature.”

  
Around them, more girls were being pushed in, but all Lexa could focus on while she was treading water was the laughter coming from Clarke’s mouth. “I’m sorry Lexa, but I can’t take you seriously looking like that.”

  
“Looking like what?” Lexa narrowed her gaze. When Clarke didn’t respond immediately, she pushed water in to her face.

  
Finally Clarke admitted what she was laughing about, she pointed to Lexa’s face and said, “You’re a raccoon. Your war paint is smearing down your face and you look ridiculous.”

  
The campers had all washed their faces before getting in the water, but Lexa hadn’t been planning on getting in herself. And now she was sure she looked ridiculous if Clarke’s reaction was any indication. Annoyed at the blonde, Lexa leaned on Clarke’s shoulders and pushed her under the water as she continued to laugh.

  
Emerging from under the surface, Clarke spat a stream of water at Lexa’s face. “Gross Clarke!” Lexa gasped, kicking her jokingly under the water. Lexa splashed water at Clarke, who quickly returned it until they both grew tired of splashing while treading water. “You’re so annoying, you know that?” Lexa asked with a laugh.  
“Yep!” Clarke popped the ‘p’ and grinned. “But you know you love it,” she asked with a laugh.

  
As they’d been fighting, the girls had drifted closer to each other to the point where they were only inches a part, something that Lexa noticed as soon as Clarke finished speaking. She hadn’t been that close to Clarke in a very long time. There was a time when this was the normal, when they huddled together at bonfires and drank from the same bottle of vodka, dancing close while drunk as younger teens. Lexa watched as Clarke’s eyes flicked down to her lips. Clarke obviously realized what she’d just done, as when she looked back up at Lexa, her cheeks turned red in embarrassment.

  
Their awkward interaction was quickly interrupted as Charlotte, Tris and Reese all screamed and cannonballed in to the lake, causing the old friends to break apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> madgirlbackhome.tumblr.com


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Raven incite a prank war and Clarke remembers past pranks, and being thirteen and having to deal with something big

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always enjoy and let me know what you think!

_“Shh!” Costia held a finger to her lips as they approached the Boat cabin. Clarke immediately stopped talking. Lexa had planned most of the pranks, but Costia and Clarke had helped, so Clarke was filling Monroe and Harper in on their plans. Originally, it was just going to be the Trio that had set the pranks, but because there were several, they’d decided to include Monroe and Harper. The cousins had been new to Camp Rothenberg the summer before, but had quickly gotten friendly with the Trio. Though they didn’t have the history together that the Trio had, they were still good enough friends to go on a prank raid together._

  
_They’d just reached the Boat camp site and Clarke smiled as she took in the silence and darkness of the camp. Everyone there, including the counselors, were fast asleep. All lingering remnants of sleep fled as Clarke grew even more excited for their pranks. It may have been four in the morning, but she was wide awake._

  
_Costia gestured for them to approach her and the five girls formed a huddle. “Okay, so Harper and Monroe you guys start with the toilet paper, Clarke and Lexa you hit the bathrooms, and I’ll set off the bombs. Let’s do this quick so we can get out of here in case anyone gets up.” They all nodded, agreeing with their leader. They’d never assigned a leader, but Costia was the obvious choice. The huddle broke and the twelve-year-olds are ran towards their given stations._

  
_“Come on!” Clarke beckoned to Lexa as they sprinted toward the bathroom cabin. They set up lanterns on the counters, opting for the least amount of bright light as possible, worrying that turning on the overhead light could wake someone up. “I’ve got the toilets,” she told Lexa as she grabbed the saran wrap and got to work. The lifted up the toilet seats and on each, she set down a tight sheet of saran wrap, undetectable as she lowered the seats._

  
_As Clarke worked on the toilets, Lexa began to tie string around the room. After finishing, Clarke took the duct tape from Lexa, ripping off pieces so that they were ready for when the brunette needed them. They strung the string in an elaborate fashion around the bathroom so that it looked almost like a laser security system._

  
_“Dude, this looks great,” Clarke grinned as they taped off the last strand._

  
_Lexa grinned back at her and nodded in agreement, “Go team!” She lifted up her hand and Clarke gave her a high five._

  
_“I think you win for thinking of the best pranks,” Clarke complimented her friend._

  
_“Thanks,” Lexa grinned back as she grabbed the lanterns and turned them off. “Come on, let’s go see how everyone else’s worked out.”_

  
_Clarke nodded in return and followed her out of the bathroom to wear the others were waiting for them. Clarke grinned as she looked around at the Boat campsite, marveling at how good of a job Harper and Monroe did at tee-peeing the whole thing._

  
_“Did the bombs work okay?” Lexa asked Costia._

  
_Costia’s responding grin was infectious as she responded, “Like a charm.”_

  
_They all exchanged high fives before sprinting back to the Mountain Cabin so get a few hours of sleep before they got to see the reactions from their rival cabin at breakfast._

 

* * *

“Here’s the deal girls,” Clarke spoke as the Arkers all sat together around their campsite fire the morning after Water Day, “Water Day is just one point in the scheme of things, we’ve still got plenty of other chances to earn points towards beating the Grounders.” The girls nodded and vocalized their agreements.

 

After Clarke gestured for Raven to add the next part of their planned speech, the brunette continued, “That being said, there are other ways of showing the Grounders how awesome we Arkers are than officially sanctioned competition days.”

  
“What do you mean?” asked one of the girls.

  
The college friends shared a grin before Clarke announced their suggestion, “Those of you who have spent a few summers here, which is most of you, know that prank wars are not officially sanctioned by the camp and technically we counselors cannot condone them, however they are a great way to show another cabin who the smarter girls are.”

  
As soon as Clarke mentioned pranks, her campers all started cheering and yelling out suggestions as to what they should do as pranks.

  
Trying to calm them all down, Raven raised a hand. After a moment they all stopped talking in order to listen to their counselor. Both Raven and Clarke were surprised at how easy it was. “Like Clarke was saying, we cannot officially condone anything you do, but if we don’t know what you’re doing then we can’t tell you not to do it. So our suggestion is that you decide on one or two leaders who will gather suggestions from everyone and designate tasks. The one thing we will suggest, however, is that anything you do be carried out tomorrow night, as that is when Clarke will be on duty after hours. And she is a lot more likely to not notice a few Arkers sneaking out of bed in the middle of the night than Octavia or Harper are, the counselors that are on duty tonight.”

  
The girls then quickly started talking again, deciding who their leaders would be, “Oh!” Clarke interrupted. The girls ceased talking, “Also, this should go without saying, but don’t talk about pranks anywhere outside of this campsite, you never know who could be listening.”

  
As the girls began talking animatedly about their plans, Clarke and Raven stood up to leave, fist bumping as they did.

  
The next night, Clarke bid Raven a goodnight before going outside to sit at one of the picnic tables to draw by the light of a lantern. She sketched the dark campsite in front of her, before she began to sketch other scenes from memory. She found herself drawing the Grounder campsite, the place that was her home for three consecutive summers. It was the mirror image of the Arker site, but the memories it held were entirely different.

  
On a large piece of paper she drew the Grounder campsite before starting to insert other memories in to it. She started with a tent far to the left, and began to draw a scene of three girls inside the tent. Two sat on one bed, one braiding the hair of the other, while the third girl, the redhead sat on the floor in front of them. Drawing Costia was harder than Clarke expected. She could remember the things they all did and the way Costia always got them to band together and help each other, but she struggled to remember the exact curve of her lips or color of her eyes.

  
The scene she drew in the first tent could have been almost any day from any year of camp. The girls simply sitting around, talking, while Clarke and Costia took turns having their hair braided by the talented braider Lexa. But as she sketched, Clarke thought specifically about one night.

 

* * *

 

_The girls were thirteen and finally considered the “big kids” at camp. Campers ages thirteen and up were either Grounders or Arkers, and the Trio had been excited to find out that they were Grounders when they arrived that year._

  
_It was their first night in their new tent and they were staying up late, enjoying the later bedtime offered to the older kids. Costia sat on the floor absentmindedly playing with a piece of string while Clarke sat in front of Lexa while the brunette placed intricate braids in to her hair._

  
_They’d spent the night so far talking about things that had happened since their last group phone call the week earlier when finally Clarke decided it was the right time to tell her friends the secret she’d been keeping from them for two months. “I know we tell each other everything, but there’s something I wanted to tell you guys in person,” Clarke began._

  
_Costia stopped playing with her string and Lexa paused mid-braid asking, “What is it?” in a gentle voice._

  
_“Well you know how my parents are basically always fighting?” Clarke asked the rhetorical question, to which her friends nodded. The girls had all met Clarke’s Dad, but had never once met her mom. Mrs. Griffin had always been on call at the hospital on arrival day and pick-up day and over the years Clarke spoke more often about her parents fighting. “Well two months ago they told me they were getting divorced.”_

  
_Lexa dropped the piece of hair she’d been holding and leaned forward to wrap Clarke in a hug from behind. Costia got up on to her knees and crawled to the side of the bed, placing her hands on Clarke’s legs for comfort._

  
_“I’m kind of glad though, is that bad?” Clarke gave a nervous laugh, “All they do is fight anymore and I think the house will be more peaceful now.”_

  
_“Divorce doesn’t have to be a bad thing,” Costia offered. Her father had left her mom when Costia was a baby. It was something she had no trouble talking about, and often spoke about how glad she was that he had left, because she and her mom were happy without him._

  
_Clarke looked at Costia and smiled, “Oh trust me I know. Now I just need to decide who I want to live with.”_

  
_“What do you mean?” Lexa asked, pulling out of the hug while still staying in close proximity to the blonde._

  
_“Well they’re selling the house and moving in to different houses. I go to private school so no matter what it doesn’t effect where I go to school, but they’re in different towns. They said I can use this summer to decide where I want to live while they both move in to the new houses. Mom originally didn’t want me to come to camp this summer because she thought I should spend the transition time or whatever at home, but Dad convinced her she was insane. Of course I had to come to camp,” Clarke explained._

  
_“Do you know who you’re going to pick?” Lexa asked, squeezing Clarke’s shoulders reassuringly._

  
_“Yeah, for sure,” Clarke nodded decisively, “I knew from the beginning I wanted to live with Dad, but told them I’d think about it. I didn’t want to hurt Mom’s feelings too badly.”_

  
_“Good choice,” both Costia and Lexa spoke simultaneously followed by, “Jinx!” They all devolved in to laughter before they began discussing the benefits that came from having divorced parents, such as double the birthday presents, double the allowances and the ability to ask one parent for something when the other says no._

  
_It was nearly time for lights out when Costia admitted something that surprised both Lexa and Clarke. “I suppose its a blessing in disguise that I can’t legally get married in most states then,” she spoke, “Because this way I don’t have to worry about getting divorced.”_

  
_Clarke could feel Lexa’s hand still as she worked on a new braid in Clarke’s hair. “What do you mean?” Clarke asked innocently._

  
_“Well I’m a lesbian, and gay marriage isn’t legal in all states yet,” she admitted matter-of-factly while toying with the string in her hand._

  
_“You are?” Clarke asked the girl. Costia’s admission was something that the blonde would never have expected._

  
_“Yep!” Costia smiled._

  
_“Why didn’t you tell us?” Lexa asked. Clarke noticed the way Lexa’s voice shook, but because her back was to her she wasn’t sure if it was because she was upset or angry._

  
_Costia simply shrugged in response, “It’s not like it’s a big deal. And if you’re worried about me kissing you in your sleep you don’t have to be.”_

  
_“No, it’s not that. I’m not worried about that,” Lexa stumbled over her words. “I just. I didn’t know. I’m surprised is all. I would have thought you’d tell us.”_

  
_Because she couldn’t see Lexa’s face, Clarke observed Costia’s. She watched as something seemed to click in Costia’s head as a knowing smirk fell on the redhead’s lips. “Well now you know,” she girl smiled._

 

* * *

 

At some point Clarke must have fallen asleep, because when she woke up, she wasn’t in her bed but rather resting her head next to the unfinished drawing. She noticed that her lantern was off and gathered that she must have slept a few hours if the batteries had run out. She struggled to read her watch in moonlight, but eventually read the clock face as 4:29 am. She must have even slept through her campers leaving to go set their pranks, because she knew they had planned to go around 2:00 am.

  
It wasn’t until Clarke heard whispered voices that she realized that she hadn’t woken up on her own, but had rather been woken up by said whispers. She sat up and looked around until she finally spotted the source of the sound. She expected to find her Arkers crouching behind the bushes, but as she approached them, she was surprised to find three Grounders. She immediately recognized them to be Reese, Charlotte and Tris.

  
As she stood above them, Clarke crossed her arms across her chest and looked at them. They each offered her a nervous smile and the blonde didn’t fail to notice that Charlotte had reached out and grabbed Reese’s hand as the counselor approached.

  
“Now what are three Grounders doing out of their tents and wandering around the Arker campsite at this time of night?” she asked, putting on her annoyed-counselor voice.

  
The girls all looked at each other, none of them wanting to be the one who spoke, before Tris finally cleared her throat and said, “You guys started it!”  
Amused, Clarke raised an eyebrow, challenging the girls who only five years younger than her to explain themselves. Briefly she wondered if they had been campers at the same time as Clarke. It was entirely possible.

  
“What Tris means,” Charlotte began, “Is that your campers weren’t exactly quiet when they came to our cabin and tee-peed us.”

  
Clarke tried in vain to hide her smirk. She knew that her girls had done more than just tee-pee the Grounders, but it seemed like the Grounders hadn’t yet figured that out.

  
“And you planned on returning the favor?” Clarke asked. “Where is your toilet paper?”

  
Clarke watched as the girls looked at each other, before Reese quickly reached in front of her, grabbing something before shoving it behind her back.

  
“What do you have there?” the blonde asked, the girl hadn’t exactly been subtle. When Reese didn’t answer her, Clarke extended her hand, asking for whatever it was.

  
Reese sighed and handed Clarke a can of axe. Clarke couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “So let me guess,” she continued to laugh, “You woke up to find your campsite tee-peed, so you went to go tell your counselors. During which time Lexa handed you the perfect prank idea in return. And you figured that coming here on the same night we pranked you was a good idea because it we wouldn’t expect it.”

  
“What makes you think this was Lexa’s idea?” Reese asked angrily, “Maybe it was our idea. We’re quite smart you know.

  
“Because axe bombs were Lexa’s crowning jewel of a prank back when we were Grounders, and I know for a fact that she brought several cans of axe with her with the plan on using them if a prank war got started,” Clarke responded matter-of-factly.  She was actually surprised that Lexa had agreed to get involved.  The Lexa she grew up with loved pranks, but Clarke also knew that she'd become more reserved in the past few years.  Clarke hoped that this was an indication that Lexa was shedding her uptight nature.  After all, she'd gotten in to the water fight she and Clarke had gotten in to on Water Day.  Briefly, Clarke suffered embarrassment from the memory of when she'd nearly kissed the brunette in the water.  She didn't think Lexa knew that Clarke had wanted to kiss her, but she was embarrassed nevertheless.  

  
“So what are you going to do to us?” Tris asked nervously.

  
“Well for starters, you’re going to hand me the rest of the axe because you don’t come over here with just one,” Clarke extended her hand again and the girls handed over three more bottles, “And now I am going to escort you back to your tents, where you will stay until morning.”

  
“Aren’t you going to tell Anya on us?” Charlotte asked, causing Reese to elbow her in the side and glare angrily at her.

  
Clarke smiled and shook her head, “Nahh, because then Anya will shut down this prank war. And besides, tattle tales are no fun.”

  
The girls thanked Clarke over and over while the blonde gathered the cans and quickly put them back inside her cabin along with her unfinished drawing before walking the delinquents back to their campsite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Costia is out. Does that mean Lexa/Clarke will be soon as well? Because I think we all know that neither of them are 100% straight.
> 
> sorry there weren't any clexa interactions outside the flashbacks! not to worry though, the next two chapters are almost entirely clexa interactions (past and present)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fourth of July Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy :)  
> goal is to get part 2 up tonight!

After the failure that was Lexa’s planned retaliation against the Arkers, the Grounders had decided to lay low, and wait to participate in the prank war until after the Fourth of July. Instead, they devoted their efforts towards preparing for the day and the various competitions the day would hold.

  
The morning of the holiday, the counselors all sat together at a table during breakfast, while Anya explained the plans for the day. “Because we have so many competitions and only so many hours in the day, multiple events will be occurring at once,” the leader explained, “Because of this, you will all be running each of the competition, meaning that you will not be allowed to compete.” A few of the counselors groaned, but others were perfectly content to be an observer. “And on another note, let’s remember that this is a universal holiday, and that while most of our girls will be content to enjoy the games, barbecue and fireworks, we’ve had negative experiences in the past with some of the older girls.”

  
“What do you mean?” asked one of the counselors who hadn’t been a camper previously. Lexa thought her name might have been Maya.

  
Anya’s gaze quickly drifted away from Maya and to the group at the far end of the table. “Harper? Monroe? Clarke? Lexa?” she asked, addressing each of the counselors who were beginning to blush, “Would any of you like to explain to Maya why it is that we are especially vigilant on the Fourth of July more so than any other competition day?” The girls all pretended to have no idea what Anya was talking about and Anya waited another moment before giving them clues, “Monroe I can understand why you don’t remember, seeing how drunk you were that night, but the rest of you surely remember. Or at the very least remember me having to call your parents the next morning?” The other counselors were finally catching on and started laughing. “Needless to say, these girls learned there lesson and never drank at camp again, but that doesn’t mean that others won’t.”

  
“She actually thinks that was the only time we drank here,” Clarke whispered in Lexa’s ear, causing Lexa to smile. Their last two summers at Camp Rothenberg had consisted of many drunken escapades, but they had learned that Harper and Monroe were may too much of lightweights to be included in said escapades, which was why Anya never caught them after the first time.

  
“Those were some great times,” Lexa whispered back, turning slightly to the blonde, completely blocking out whatever it was that Anya was saying next.  
Lexa hadn’t spoken to Clarke much since the incident on Water Day. She’d feigned ignorance when Clarke had knocked on her cabin door at nearly five in the morning with Charlotte, Reese and Tris in tow, claiming she had no idea why they were awake. In the two days following, Lexa had mostly kept away from Clarke, teaching her horseback riding and fencing lessons while Clarke remained in the art cabin. On several occasions she’d considered stopping by the art cabin during a break, just to spend time with the blonde, but had decided against it.

  
Things had been going well with Clarke. They’d talked about college and caught up on the past few years with each other. Lexa had particularly enjoyed hearing how Clarke had become friends with Raven. The fact that Clarke would become best friends with the girl who’s boyfriend she’d been sleeping with after discovering his secret wasn’t something that surprised Lexa. Clarke had always had a way with putting friendships above everything else.

  
What had stopped Lexa from going to spend more time with Clarke was precisely the memory of what had happened on water day. She’d allowed herself to get close to Clarke and her imagination had gotten the best of her. She’d imagined Clarke looking at her lips. She’d imagined the look in Clarke’s eyes that made it seem like she wanted to kiss her. There was no reason to believe that Clarke actually wanted to kiss her, so Lexa began to assume that because she hadn’t had a friend since Costia’s death, that she was associating friendship with something more. And that scared her.

  
“Do you remember the first time we got drunk, back when we were fourteen?” Clarke asked in a hushed voice.

  
Lexa smiled, there was no way she could ever forget that night.

 

* * *

 

_“So how did you get this anyway?” Lexa asked, holding the bottle of vodka up and Costia began to pour orange juice in to cups that Clarke was holding._

  
_“I know some high schoolers,” Costia shrugged in response, “Which technically we are now, or at least will be in the fall.” She gestured to Lexa to hand her the bottle and seemed to expertly measure out the alcohol in to the cups. “We’re going to start with only a little because I’ve only drank a few times before and you guys never had so we need to figure out what our tolerance is.”_

  
_Costia handed cups each to Clarke and Lexa before grabbing her own cup. They all clinked their cups together before taking a sip of the beverage. The drink was strong and the orange juice only barely managed to mask the bitter taste and Lexa winced as she took her first sip. The brunette’s reaction caused her two best friends to laugh. “This is gross!” she insisted. “Why do people like it so much?”_

  
_“It’s not the taste that people like, it’s the way it makes you feel after you’ve had it,” Costia explained, turning around to dangle her feet off the dock. The redhead was the shortest of the three and her feet barely grazed the surface of the water._

  
_Lexa was still slightly suspicious, but took another long gulp of the beverage anyway, causing Clarke and Costia to both cheer. The girls sat on the edge of the dock shoulder to shoulder, splashing their feet in the water as they drank their mixed drinks. It didn’t take long for the new drinkers to start feeling the effects of the alcohol._

  
_“We should play a drinking game,” Clarke suggested, “Isn’t that what people do when they drink at parties?” She scooted back from the edge of the dock so that she could sit cross-legged._

  
_“Good idea,” Costia concurred, moving away from the edge._

  
_Lexa was definitely feeling tipsy and followed her two friends until they sat together forming a triangle, “So what kind of game?” she asked._

  
_“Well we don’t have cards, so that gets rid of a lot, and we can’t exactly play beer pong,” Costia spoke as she quickly refilled each of their cups with more orange juice and Smirnoff. “We could always play never have I ever.”_

  
_Clarke and Lexa voiced their agreements, with Clarke adding, “I love that game, but don’t we already know everything about each other?”_

  
_Lexa missed the knowing look that Costia had thrown her as she was stirring her drink with her finger. Costia smirked and said, “Maybe not. But regardless, it’ll be fun anyway. The way it works is you say something you’ve never done and if someone else has done it that person has to drink, but if nobody has then you have to drink. Make sense?”_

  
_Clarke and Lexa both nodded._

  
_“Okay, umm Clarke why don’t you go first,” Costia suggested._

  
_The blonde nodded before saying, “Never have I ever been on an airplane.” She smiled as both Costia and Lexa took a drink._

  
_“Okay, now it’s your turn Lexa,” Costia explained, “We’ll just keep going around in a circle.”_

  
_“Never have I ever been to a high school party,” Lexa smiled knowingly as she gestured for Costia to drink. Clarke’s drink remained in her hand._

  
_They continued going around the circle, their statements ranging from ‘never have I ever been surfing’ to ‘never have I ever smoked a cigarette’. Even though they knew the answers to some of the statements, trying to single each other out and forcing a specific person to drink was something they were greatly enjoying._

  
_The girls got steadily more drunk as the moon reflected on the lake water that surrounded them. They would wake up with headaches in the morning, but would have no trouble remembering everything from the night. It was growing later and they knew it was nearly time to head back to their tent._

  
_“Let’s make this the last round,” Lexa yawned, “We have fencing in the morning and I don’t want to have to go up against Anya exhausted.” Her friends nodded in return._

  
_“Alrighty then,” Clarke tapped her finger on her chin, “Never have I ever been on a date.” The blonde looked at the redhead who simply shook her head, then at Lexa who shook her head as well. Clarke shrugged and to a gulp of her nearly finished drink._

  
_Lexa was starting to understand what Costia was saying about how alcohol was about how it made you feel rather than the drink itself. She was feeling happy and confident. Her confidence bubbled over in to her last statement of the game, “Never have I ever been kissed.”_

  
_“What!” Costia exclaimed. She quickly took a sip of her own drink and put it down. Lexa looked over at Clarke whose drink was still firmly in her hands and nowhere near her lips. “Clarke, you’ve never been kissed either?” Clarke shook her head._

  
_“We’re fourteen Costia, lot’s of people our age haven’t had their first kiss yet,” the blonde shrugged, suddenly getting defensive._

  
_“Oh! No I get that. Don’t get made Clarkey Clarke,” Costia placed a hand on the blonde’s bare leg, “I’m just surprised because you’re both pretty and I would have thought it would have happened at least at a school dance or something.”_

  
_Costia’s best friends shook their heads._

  
_“Okay, well we can’t have you guys going in to high school never having been kissed.” Costia grinned as an idea came to her. She scooted closer to Lexa first._   
_Lexa knew it was coming, she knew Costia well enough to know what Costia was going to do when she’d made her admission. Costia placed hand hand gently behind Lexa’s neck and the other on the dock next to Lexa’s leg. Lexa tilted her head slightly and placed one hand at Costia’s waist. She looked down at the redheads lips which were curved in to a slightly upturned smile. Costia initiated the kiss. It took a moment to reach a rhythm and only seconds later, the kiss was over. Lexa blushed as she pulled away._

  
_Costia, however, was slightly more confident, “You’re quite the natural Lexa.” She kissed the brunette’s cheek before crawling over to Clarke. “You’re turn.”_

  
_Lexa watched as Clarke nodded. She didn’t seem as nervous as Lexa had felt, but then again she hadn’t had to go first. She wasn’t sure which kiss lasted longer, but she knew it was Clarke that had pulled away from Costia first, just as Lexa had._

  
_“Wow,” Costia breathed, reaching out a finger to briefly touch Clarke’s lips before turning to Lexa. “You’re both pretty great kissers for beginners. Now you guys should kiss each other so that we don’t have to worry about any of this being awkward. This way we’ve all kissed each other so it’s okay.” Lexa must have looked nervous as Costia quickly added, “Only if you want to obviously.”_

  
_“No, yeah it’s fine,” Lexa nodded before looking to Clarke who was nodding as well. Lexa made the initiative to make her way over to the blonde and they both sat their drinks on the dock, careful to avoid knocking them over._

  
_Lexa was careful not to knock Clarke’s cup over, but in her drunken state she was clumsy and when she had scooted over to Clarke, her elbow gave way, causing her to fall against the seated blonde. Surprised and unable to act quickly enough in her inebriated state, Clarke fell backwards on to her back with Lexa on top of her. They all immediately started laughing at the ridiculous situation._

  
_With liquid courage coursing through her veins, Lexa maneuvered her legs to straddle Clarke, then placed her hands on either side of the girl’s blonde curly head. She kept her eyes trained on the blue ones below her as she carefully lowered her lips on to the girl’s. Their’s was the shortest kiss of the night, but it did cause Costia to cheer. Lexa lifted herself off a Clarke, then offered her hands to help Clarke sit back up as well._

  
_“Did I not tell you this game would be fun?” Costia asked with a laugh that the others joined in on. “Okay, so for the last one I’m going to switch it up. It’s sort of the opposite of the way we’ve been playing and I say something I’ve done that I bet you haven’t done. But if you have done it, you still drink. Make sense?”_   
_“Yep,” both Clarke and Lexa responded simultaneously._

  
_“Alright,” Costia grinned and feigned concentration, as if she hadn’t been planning her last thought all night. “I have, but I bet you’ve never been sexually attracted to another girl.”_

  
_Lexa’s heart leaped in her chest. Whether it was because of the kissing, the liquid courage or the fact that she was with her best friends in the world, she knew she was able to tell them the truth. She reached out, grabbed her drink and looked Costia directly in the eyes as she chugged the rest of her drink._

  
_The brunette kept the redhead’s eye contact and completely missed the girl to her left, the blonde, drinking from her cup as well, blue eyes watching two pairs of green find each other._

 

* * *

 

“You got this! They’re almost over the line!” Lexa yelled alongside Octavia as they watched their campers tug on the rope with all their might. She was surprising herself at how much she was able to keep up with Octavia’s cheering. Their encouragements paid off suddenly, the rope just forward enough to cause all the Arkers to lurch forward, with the first few taking a dive in to the kiddie pool filled with water that designated the center. She cheered loudly and pumped her first in to the air.

  
By winning the tug of war competition, the Grounders were now tied with the Arkers. The Grounders had one the three-legged race, the relay race and now the tug of war contest while the Arkers had won the beach volleyball game, kickball game and pie-eating contest. All that was left was the fencing match. This was something that Lexa was pretty certain they were going to win, as being the fencing teacher she’d given her own campers extra tips in the days leading up to the Independence Day festivities.

  
While Octavia and the other Grounders relished in their victories, Lexa started off to the fencing area. She would be judging the competition and needed to get their before the campers in order to make sure everything was properly set up.

  
She’d nearly made it to the arena when she heard someone running up behind her. She turned around and saw it was Clarke. “What’s up?” she asked.

  
“Just coming to see if you needed any help,” Clarke responded, slightly out of breath. “And to make sure you don’t tamper with anything that results in an unfair victory for the Grounders.”

  
Lexa raised an eyebrow at the girl, as if what she was suggesting was absurd. “I’m not a cheater Clarke.”

  
“I dunno Lexa, fear of losing can do crazy things to a person,” Clarke crossed her arms across her chest. Lexa wanted to look down, to admire the way Clarke’s v-neck stretched downwards as she crossed her arms, but she had conditioned herself to have self-control. She didn’t need to be leering at her straight friend.

  
Lexa simply rolled her eyes at the blonde and started to separate the swords in to three piles; sabre, epee and foil so that the campers wouldn’t get confused. Out of the corner of her eye she watched as Clarke aided her. “I’m surprised you remember which is which, especially you hated fencing back when we were campers,” she spoke.

  
“I only hated it because I sucked at it,” Clarke laughed in return. “You were Anya’s prodigy and killed it at fencing. And I didn’t hate fencing all the time. I just hated when I had to go. I liked watching you.”

  
Lexa was careful not to read to much in to what Clarke was saying. “Thank you,” she responded carefully. There was nothing wrong with one friend complimenting another. And it wasn’t an unfounded compliment either, Lexa was actually very good at fencing and actually continued to compete for her college’s club team.

  
The continued to sort in silence until they heard the loud ruckus that was their campers arriving for the last competition of the day. The counselors parted and huddled with their respective teams, garnering last minute pep talks.

  
The fencing competition was set up so that there would be fifteen rounds. Each Arker had been paired up with a Grounder randomly. The goal of the competition was to win eight of the fifteen rounds. Whichever team made it to eight first would be declared the winner.

  
As it turned out, the cabins were so equally matched up, that they continued playing matches until they made it to the final, fifteenth round. Each cabin had managed to already each win seven rounds, and the winner of the fifteenth would determine the winner of not only the fencing competition, but the day as a whole.

  
The final match was between Tris and a blonde Arker named Kate. Lexa knew that Kate was a natural when it came to fencing, but she also knew that this was also only her first year. Tris, however, was more experienced. Lexa viewed her as a prodigy, much in the way she had been Anya’s prodigy.

  
Lexa nodded to Clarke who set the three minute timer and blew her whistle to signal the beginning of the match. The camp wasn’t sophisticated enough to have an electrical scoring system, but when it came to high school girls, it was always easy to tell who had scored and when. The match would last until one competitor received five points, or the timer ran out, whichever happened first.

  
With only fifteen seconds left and one point each for Kate and Tris, the spectators were going crazy. Lexa had long since given up trying to get them to calm down, having resorted to even giving Clarke a pleading look, but nothing had worked. The clock ticked down and there were seven seconds left, and that’s when Kate misjudged a step and tripped forward. Everyone gasped, but the trip threw both Tris and Kate off and resulted in the Arker planting her foil directly on Tris’ chest.  
The timer reached zero at the same moment everyone realized what had happened and the Arkers all erupted in to cheers while the Grounders groaned. The winners continued cheering through handshakes and as Raven led them away to dinner.

  
“It was a valiant effort girls,” Octavia reassured their campers. “This just means that we’ll have to not only get them back on the prank war, but also on the next competition day because we’re now tied.” The girls groaned in response, but willingly followed their counselor to the main green where they would be having a barbecue for dinner, rather than eating in the mess hall.

  
Meanwhile, Lexa hung back and cleaned up the space. She’d finished putting away all the swords except one foil and began to play around with it, processing her own skills.

  
“You’re still pretty great with that it seems,” came a voice that caused Lexa to jump and drop the foil.

  
Lexa turned, knowing the source of the voice and saw Clarke standing while laughing at her. “You can’t just scare someone like that!” she spoke, only somewhat annoyed.

  
“So you’re scared of me, are you?” the blonde waggled her eyebrows.

  
Lexa shook her head at the girl and let out a laugh, marveling out how ridiculous Clarke looked when she waggled her eyebrows. “What are you doing here anyway?” she asked.

  
“We can’t start the barbecue without our designated burger flipper,” Clarke explained, “So I offered to fetch you.”

  
“Aren’t you such a gracious counselor,” Lexa teased, “You’re getting out of some kind of gross duty by coming here, aren’t you?” Lexa knew Clarke well enough to know that she probably conned her way out of cutting tomatoes or something by offering to fetch Lexa.

  
Clarke shrugged and smiled, “Or maybe I just wanted to rub our victory in your face.”

  
“Hey!” Lexa huffed as she hurried over to the blonde and playfully punched her arm.

  
“Ouch!” the girl responded, rubbing where she’d been hit. After Lexa grinned at Clarke, Clarke spoke again, ‘I bet you I can beat you back to the main green. Ready? 1, 2, 3, Go!”

  
“What, that’s not!” Lexa wasn’t able to finish her sentence before the blonde began to book it across the field. She huffed and hustled, trying to catch up with her childhood friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, find me at madgirlbackhome.tumblr.com  
> and send me prompts for one-shot aus!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fourth of July part deux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy!

Somehow Clarke was able to manage getting out of doing anything other than keeping an eye on her campers during the barbecue. It was an easy task considering the fact that they were so excited about their victory that they all hung out together rather than splitting up in to their friend groups.

  
It wasn’t long before the sun set and the girls were given the option to hang out at the campsite or remain at the green by the lake. Clarke wasn’t surprised when all her campers decided to remain at the green until the fireworks were set off.

  
After helping Raven and Harper pass out ice cream sandwiches to all the campers, Clarke wandered off on her own. She told Raven she wanted to work on her drawing before the fireworks while she didn’t have to worry about keeping track of her campers. Raven told her to have fun and didn’t seem to notice how melancholy Clarke appeared to be.

  
Clarke let herself in to the art cabin and took out the drawing she’d started a few night previously, the night the prank war began. So far she’d managed to complete the scene in the first tent, where Lexa was braiding her hair while Costia sat on the floor and had begun to sketch the Trio with Harper and Monroe around the campfire, toasting marshmallows for s’mores. Clarke withdrew her pencils and started to fill in the shadows of Costia’s hair, but had to stop herself.

  
It wasn’t her fault Costia was dead, Clarke knew that. It wasn’t even Lexa’s fault, because there was nothing she could have done to prevent the drunk driver from hitting them. But even though she was hundreds of miles away the night Costia died, Clarke knew she could have prevented her friend’s death. Clarke’s choice eleven months previous to the car accident had the potential to change everything. Maybe if Clarke had made a different choice that Fourth of July four years earlier, she would be sitting with both Lexa and Costia, talking about how when they were Grounders, they always won the Fourth of July competitions. But Clarke didn’t have the courage that night four years earlier, and because of that, Clarke was alone.

 

* * *

 

_“Do you think Costia will be okay?” Lexa asked as they walked away from the Grounder campsite and toward the lake._

  
_“I think she’ll be fine,” Clarke responded. She reached down and grabbed her friend’s hand reassuringly. “It’s probably just food poisoning. She’ll be fine once she sleeps it off.”_

  
_Lexa sighed and gripped Clarke’s hand in return, giving it a brief squeeze. “It’s just a bummer that she’s missing our last firework show. Who knows what we’ll all be doing next year. Mom wants me to either get a job or go to nerd camps starting next year.”_

  
_Clarke was only half paying attention to what Lexa was staying, focusing instead on their hands, hoping her’s wasn’t sweating too much. They were fifteen and nearly halfway through their last full summer together, but getting time alone with Lexa without Costia. Sure, Clarke loved Costia in her own way and owed much of her confidence to the redhead, but she’d made herself a promise at the beginning of the summer and had told Wells about said promise so that she would be held accountable for it._

  
_Clarke wasn’t sure when her feelings for Lexa changed from friend love to romantic love, but she had no trouble remembering the moment she realized she was in love with the girl. It was three weeks before her last day of her freshman year of high school and she was on the phone with Lexa, talking about how excited they were for the summer. Lexa had told Clarke that she missed her face, and the realization of how much Clarke had missed Lexa had hit her. She had missed all the little things about her, like the way she looked in glasses and the way she jumped in to the lake without testing to see how cold it was, every time. And on arrival several weeks later, Clarke made a promise to herself to tell Lexa how she felt._

  
_“Why don’t we watch the fireworks from the round side?” Clarke asked the girl whose hand she held. Technically the round side of the lake, about a quarter of a mile from the main dock area, wasn’t off limits, but they were supposed to bring a counselor with them when they went._

  
_“Good idea,” Lexa grinned in agreement, pulling Clarke’s hand as she started to skip towards the more secluded area._

  
_It didn’t take long to get the grassy knoll on the edge of the lake, and as the girls sat down they could see the rest of the campers all settling on the green eating ice cream and getting ready to watch the fireworks._

  
_“I wish the summer could last forever,” Lexa broke the silence as they sat shoulder to shoulder._

  
_“Me too,” Clarke agreed as she rested her head on the brunette’s shoulder. They sat there silently for another few minutes before the fireworks began._

  
_Clarke lifted her head to watch the exploding lights and interlocked her fingers with Lexa as they did. Clarke always loved fireworks. She loved the shining lights and the way the explosions seemed to reverberate in her body, forcing her soul to exist in that moment and that moment alone._

  
_The fireworks stalled momentarily and Clarke knew that that meant the finale was coming. She turned to look at Lexa. This was her moment. She needed to tell Lexa. She wasn’t great at thinking up elegant speeches so she just lay it all out there in one simple sentence, “I love you Lexa.”_

  
_Lexa’s face broke out in to a smile as she responded, “I love you to Clarke!” The brunette quickly pecked the blonde’s cheek._

  
_Clarke realized very quickly that Lexa didn’t understand what she had meant. “That’s not what I meant, I mean…” She trailed off and Lexa looked at her with a confused expression on her face. The girl’s blue eyes quickly darted down to Lexa’s lips, then back up. She just needed to lean forward, to kiss her. Clarke hesitated and the finale erupted in a stream of colors and explosions, causing both girls to look towards the sky._

  
_After the last firework exploded Lexa turned back to Clarke and asked, “Sorry, what were you saying before?”_

  
_Clarke opened and shut her mouth several times until she realized the moment had passed. She would have to wait for another moment. “Just that I’m so glad you’re my friend,” she grinned. Unaware that Clarke’s smile was fake, Lexa enveloped her in a hug before leading her away in search of ice cream sandwiches._

 

* * *

 

Clarke had always wondered if everything would have been different if she’d kissed Lexa that night. She knew for a fact that if she had kissed Lexa, or told her how she really felt, Costia wouldn’t have kissed her several weeks later and they wouldn’t have gotten together. Because even if Lexa hadn’t reciprocated Clarke’s feelings, Costia never would have initiated things with Lexa knowing how Clarke felt. And if Costia had never initiated it, then Costia and Lexa would likely have never gotten together. And if they hadn’t gotten together, then Costia wouldn’t have been visiting Lexa the day they got in to the car accident that took her life.  
Clarke knew it wasn’t her fault that Costia was dead. But she also knew that her choice took Costia’s future from her.

  
Realizing that she couldn’t work on her drawing anymore that night, Clarke carefully put it away and went in search of the girl she was once in love with.

  
As she approached the green she spotted Lexa sitting behind one of campers, braiding her hair. And for a moment Clarke saw that same girl she once loved. The girl who could spend hours braiding other people’s hair. Clarke hoped more than anything else that that girl was still inside the woman in front of her.

  
“Hey!” Lexa grinned at her as soon as Clarke approached the counselor and her camper. The brunette quickly tied off the last braid and her camper thanked her before running off. “What’s up?” she asked.

  
Clarke guessed that her expression wasn’t exactly the happiest if Lexa had caught on to her attitude. “Do you want to watch the fireworks together?” Clarke finally asked, “I think they’re going to start soon.”

  
“Just like old times,” Lexa said, before adding sadly, “Almost.”

  
Clarke let Costia’s absence linger between them for a moment before she continued, “I was thinking maybe we could go watch them from the round side?” Clarke watched as a mask seemed to fall on Lexa’s face, the mask seemingly hiding all emotion, but the brunette nodded nevertheless.

  
They walked in near silence to the grassy knoll a quarter of a mile away and sat down shoulder to shoulder. “Do you remember the last time we were here?” Lexa asked as they waited for the light show to begin.

  
“Probably better than you do,” Clarke responded with a slight laugh.

  
“I doubt that,” Lexa shrugged. Clarke gave the brunette a confused look and as clarification, Lexa continued, “I’ve replayed every moment of that summer over and over again countless times. Sometimes without even realizing it.”

  
“Why?” Clarke asked.

  
“Depends on the day,” Lexa spoke softly. “Somedays its to punish myself. I make myself remember what was arguably the best summer of my life to remind myself that I can never go back to it and that that happiness will never come back. Sometimes it’s to selfishly remember you and Costia and everything we were. Sometimes I try and figure out the exact moment I fell in love with Costia.”

  
Clarke was surprised at how candid Lexa was being. She wondered if Lexa had ever talked to anyone about Costia after the girl’s death, or if Clarke was the first one she was opening up to about it. Costia’s presence with them was tangible. She could almost feel the pressure of the girl’s shoulder against Clarke’s empty side. “Did you figure it out? When the moment was?” she asked.

  
Lexa shook her head. “I guess I must have always loved her. Her kissing me in front of everyone that day must have just kickstarted it. God Clarke, I wish I hadn’t loved her. I wish it almost every day. Even still. I’ve moved on from her death, but I still wish I hadn’t loved her.”

  
“What not?” Clarke asked, only slightly shocked. The sentiment wasn’t something she could ever have agreed with, but it made sense when associated with the way Lexa had changed.

  
“Because love is weakness,” she response came matter-of-factly.

  
“Do you really think that?”

  
“I have to.”

  
They sat silently for another few minutes, staring out over the lake. In the distance Clarke could see several figures getting ready to set off the fireworks. So much had changed in the four years since the last time she’d sat with Lexa on that grassy knoll, but in many ways it still felt like she was reliving that evening.

  
“I loved you,” Clarke sighed. Remembering Lexa’s reaction the last time she’d admitted her love, Clarke followed the statement up with clarification. “The last time we sat here I told you I loved, and I didn’t mean it the way I would have said it to Costia. I was in love with you. And I can’t place the moment I fell in love with you either, because I think I always have been. Or had been.”

  
The firework show began above their heads, but neither girl looked upwards, instead their eyes remained on one another’s faces. For a brief moment Clarke thought about how cliche it was that she was admitting to Lexa her past love while fireworks erupted around them. They continued to look at each other and Clarke silently pleaded with Lexa to respond.

  
Finally Lexa did respond, “But you’re straight.”

  
Of all the things Clarke would have expected Lexa to respond with, her actual response was nowhere on that list. The innocence of the response caused the blonde to let out a single laugh as she said, “No I’m not!”

  
“But what about Finn?” Lexa asked quickly, “And that boy you went to your freshman dance with all those years ago? The one who you were so excited that asked you?”

  
“I like people Lexa. Boys, girls and everything in between,” Clarke explained. “Don’t you remember that first time we played never have I ever? I drank on that last question.” Lexa’s face made it painfully obvious that she hadn’t remembered, or hadn’t seen. “Lexa, I’ve almost kissed you several times. Once on this very knoll and once only four days ago. Tell me you didn’t know that.”

  
Lexa stumbled over the words of her response, raising her voice slightly so that she could be heard over the explosions of the fireworks, “I thought I was imagining it.”

  
“Why would you be imagining that?” Clarke practically laughed.

  
The laugh was immediately smothered by lips that seemed to come out of nowhere. Lexa had grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her hard on the mouth. The surprise caused Clarke to loose her balance and she fell out of sitting position and found herself on her back. Just like she had the only other time Lexa had kissed her. Clarke nearly voiced the memory, but found herself looking up at the brunette who had just straddled her and lost her voice.

  
She wouldn’t have had time to respond regardless, as Lexa’s lips were back on hers moments later. The kiss was hungry and possessive, with little rhythm. Needing to push back on Lexa’s control, Clarke lifted herself slightly off the ground, giving herself just enough leverage to flip them over so that Lexa was now on her back and Clarke was hovering over her, one leg between the brunette’s legs.

  
Clarke lowered herself on to the other girl and kissed her way up the brunette’s neck and jaw before finding her lips again. Lexa tried hard to continue their forceful kissing, but Clarke forced her to slow it down, finally reaching a rhythm. She took a hand and placed it gently at the base of Lexa’s neck, brushing against the baby hairs she found there.

  
It was just after Lexa had swiped her tongue along Clarke’s lower lip, requesting entrance, that they heard a loud gasp and an, “Oh my god!” from a young sounding voice.

  
The girls broke apart quickly and sat up, looking to see who it was that had interrupted them. It was two Grounder girls, Reese and Charlotte. They stood there with mouths open, shocked at the scene in front of them.

  
Clarke looked from the younger girls to Lexa whose face appeared pale even as the finale to the firework show splashed lights of color on her face. She watched the veil of the emotionless mask fall over the girl’s face right before the brunette abruptly stood up and hurried away without a single word.

  
Clarke watched as Lexa walked away, leaving her to deal with the two Grounders. She watched as Lexa walked away and left her emotions behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so we've know got a bit more information from the girls' last summer at camp, a little more information on the car accident costia died in as well as some progress for clexa, if it is progress that is. Maybe this will set them back. who knows? (well I do, but that doesn't mean I'm going to give it away)
> 
> let me know what you all think! Lexa's reaction chapter that explains her mindset will be up tomorrow at some point!
> 
> you can find me at madgirlbackhome.tumblr.com


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Lexa doesn't follow her own advice

_“How many of these do you think we’ve made over the years?” Costia asked as she finished cutting a strand of yellow string before passing the scissors to Clarke._   
_“Well it depends,” Lexa contemplated, “because we didn’t figure out our color scheme until we were nine, so this would be our seventh year with the color scheme, but we’ve definitely made more than one a year. And then you have to multiply whatever that number is by three if we’re talking a conglomerate of our three collections.”_

  
_Clarke and Costia shared a look before laughing at Lexa’s outburst. “You’re cute when you go off on tangents like that,” Costia laughed, quickly leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. It was something the girl had started doing more often and Lexa was starting to pick up on it. She’d also been picking up on the fact that it was her Costia was kissing on the cheek, hardly ever Clarke._

  
_The blonde appeared to notice it as well, as she stiffened slightly and focused on cutting the perfect amount of string._

  
_“Thanks,” Lexa blushed in response._

  
_After Clarke finished cutting her string, she passed organized the strands so that each of the girls were receiving two of each color. Each color symbolized one of them; red was for Costia, yellow for Clarke and purple for Lexa. It had been that way for seven years._

  
_Their designs were all the same, like most friendship bracelets. And it didn’t take long before their expert fingers were able to finish the arrowhead design that encompassed all three colors._

  
_As soon as Clarke tied a knot at the end of her’s, she spoke, “Alright, time to switch!”_

  
_They each looked at the others and passed their bracelets one to the left of the circle they were seated in. Lexa passed hers to Costia, who’s hand gripped her’s just slightly longer than necessary, who passed her’s to Clarke. Clarke passed her’s to Lexa._

  
_After they each tied their new bracelets on to each other’s wrists Costia spoke, “I can’t believe we only have a few weeks left here. Forever. Best friends forever, right?”_

  
_Both Clarke and Lexa nodded enthusiastically while responding in sync, “Best friends forever.”_

  
_They then enveloped each other in to a group hug._

 

* * *

 

Lexa woke to Octavia poking her. She groaned and turned over, “What do you want?” The morning alarm had yet to go off Lexa knew, because it was nearly impossible to sleep through.

  
“We need to talk,” came the voice of the other Grounder counselor.

  
Lexa groaned again before leaning over to the side table and grabbing her glasses. It was only a brief moment before Lexa remembered the events from the evening before, and what she was sure was the reason Octavia wanted to talk to her. After Reese and Charlotte had stumbled upon Lexa and Clarke, Lexa had ran off. It was what she did, she ran from anything that involved emotion. Looking back, it was unprofessional to have left her campers with Clarke, but it had been an impulse reaction.

  
After returning to the green, Lexa had found Octavia and had asked her to deal with their campers, as she was feeling ill. She must have looked ill, as Octavia had no problem with the request. Lexa had then gone back to her cabin and withdrawn the one camp memory she’d brought with her. The friendship bracelet. The last friendship bracelet. The one Clarke had made. She’d fallen asleep clutching the bracelet, still dressed in her clothes from the day.

  
So as Lexa grabbed her glasses, she tucked the bracelet under her pillow and stared at Octavia. She cleared the sleep out of her voice, saying, “What is it Octavia?”  
“Charlotte and Reese told me what they saw last night,” she crossed her arms across her chest, “But more importantly they told me how you left them there and ran away from them. And from Clarke.”

  
Lexa didn’t want to talk about Clarke with anyone, let alone one of Clarke’s closest friends. She stood up, ignoring Octavia, grabbed her towel and threw on flip flops. “I need to shower before the morning alarm,” she stated simply. She ignored Octavia’s huffs of frustration and left the cabin for the bathroom.

  
As the girl entered the bathroom she heard muffled sobs from behind one of the stalls. As much as she hated dealing with crying girls, it was in her job description. She sighed and put down her towel before knocking on the stall door. “You okay in there?” she asked.

  
The sniffling subsided momentarily as the voice behind the door whispered, “Who’s there?”

  
Lexa was pretty sure she knew who was sitting in the stall, she had a fairly distinct voice. “It’s Lexa,” she responded, “Do you want to open the door?”

  
Following a brief moment of silence, Lexa heard the lock on the stall slide and the door was pushed open. Sitting on the closed lid of the toilet behind the door was Reese. “Hi Lexa,” the brunette spoke, wiping stray tears from her pink cheeks.

  
“What’s wrong?” the counselor asked of the fourteen-year-old.

  
“Just stupid drama,” Reese laughed half-heartedly. “I got in to a fight with Charlotte.”

  
Lexa knew all about getting in to fights with friends, she had gotten in to dozens growing up with Clarke and Costia. “What was it about?” she asked.

  
Reese’s already pink cheeks reddened, obviously embarrassed by whatever it was that they were arguing about. “Well after we saw you and Clarke, Charlotte started acting all weird so I called her out on it. Then she got like all defensive and didn’t want to talk about it, so we found Tris and finished planning our prank. Oh yeah, we pranked the Arkers last night.” She paused and offered Lexa a sheepish grin to which Lexa shook her head with a slight smile. “So anyway, after we got back, Tris fell asleep right away but Charlotte and I were too excited to sleep. We sat outside our tent and played truth or dare because we were bored, but when I dared her to kiss me she got mad and started yelling at me for no reason. Anyway, that woke Tris up and she was mad about that and they both blamed me. So I came here.”

  
“How long have you been in here Reese?” Lexa asked, not entirely sure how else to respond to the situation.

  
“A couple hours,” she shrugged in response. “I just don’t get what the big deal was. I mean, I guess maybe she’s homophobic or something dumb like that, but I never thought she was. We were both really excited after the capture the egg game a few years ago when,” Reese trailed off looking at Lexa, “When you and Costia kissed.”

  
Lexa’s stomach dropped at the memory. She didn’t think there was anyone at camp besides herself, Clarke and Anya that would remember that. “You were there?” she asked.

  
Reese nodded and add with a small smile, “I was the girl who gave Costia the egg. She was my mentor in tennis class.”

  
Lexa refused to let her mind wander to the memory of that day, instead she tried to focus on the girl hurting in front of her. “Sometimes it’s easier to lash out at the people we care the most about when we’re hurting, because we know they’ll always be there,” Lexa explained, not sure if she was saying it to Reese or herself.  
“Do you think she’s hurting?” the look on Reese’s face was innocent and full of hurt for her friend.

  
Lexa tried hard to think about the times she’d seen Charlotte interact with Reese, and she was brought back to Water Day, when Charlotte had been so quick to reassure Reese. When she’d pressed her lips to Reese’s cheek. Oh. Lexa recognized it, or at least she thought she did. She’d been wrong in the past. Clarke was proof of that.

  
“Why did you dare her to kiss you Reese?” Lexa asked. She was more sure of Charlotte’s feelings that she was of Reese’s.

  
Reese’s blush deepened, “Because she’s been my friend since we were seven and because she takes nobody’s shit. Because she’s funny and wild and always willing to do crazy things. Because I wanted her to kiss me.”

  
Lexa certainly hadn’t been expecting that kind of admission from the girl and it began to thaw her frozen heart. There was something so innocent and pure about it that Lexa didn’t view it as weakness. The love that Reese spoke of wasn’t weakness. She smiled at the girl and placed a reassuring hand on her knee, “Then maybe you should tell her that. Because trust me, not talking about it will just fuck everything up in the long run.” Reese raised her eyebrows at Lexa’s swear, to which she shrugged. “Promise me you’ll tell her?”

  
“Okay,” Reese agreed. “But no offense Lexa, didn’t you run away from Clarke? Are you really the best person to be giving me advice?”

  
Lexa was torn between reprimanding her camper for insubordination and laughing out loud at how right Reese was. “Let’s chalk it up to me learning from my mistakes so that you don’t have to,” she laughed, “Just because we fucked up, that doesn’t mean that you have to.”

  
Reese nodded and extended her pinky finger, which Lexa shook with her own. A pinky promise had binding powers like no other.

 

* * *

 

Lexa didn’t follow her advice to Reese and by observing the camper, she wasn’t sure Reese had followed it either. Reese, Charlotte and Tris didn’t appear to be fighting anymore, but there was definitely an awkwardness to the way they interacted.

  
Lexa wasn’t avoiding Clarke, but she definitely wasn’t choosing to interact with her. She somehow avoided speaking to the blonde for an entire week, much to Octavia’s annoyance. To be fair though, it wasn’t as if Clarke was seeking her out either. Their cabins didn’t have any activities planned together for that week so there was no real reason for them to interact as it was.

  
Octavia was obviously still pissed at Lexa though, and only returned to their cabin to sleep, spending the rest of her time either bonding with their campers or with Raven and Clarke. Being alone didn’t bother Lexa though. She thrived on it. She threw herself into the horseback riding and fencing lessons she was giving every day and focused on the campers, because that was why she was there in the first place. She didn’t come for Clarke. Even if a part of her had wished Clarke would come back before she even knew Clarke was.

  
Lexa had just finished cleaning up the fencing room and was headed back to the Grounder cabin when she noticed the lights still on in the arts cabin. The camp was dark and all the campers were already back in their tents getting ready for bed so Lexa figured she should go turn off the lights that someone had obviously left on by accident.

  
As she approached the cabin, however, Lexa realized that the lights had not been left on by accident, and that there was in fact someone in there. Even if it weren’t for the fact that it was so dark out that the woman inside would not be able to see Lexa through the window, Lexa still wouldn’t have been discovered, as the woman inside was so engrossed in whatever it was that she was drawing, that she didn’t look up once.

  
Lexa knew that if she wasn’t going to announce herself to the blonde inside the cabin, she should just leave and stop acting creepy, but she couldn’t tear herself away. She was entranced by the way Clarke’s tongue peeked out from between her pink lips as she concentrated on shading a section of her drawing. The soft blonde curls were piled atop her head with a single strand hanging in front of her ear. It was the kind of thing that would have annoyed Lexa like no other, but it didn’t seem to bother Clarke at all.

  
Lexa remembered Clarke always looking happy when she was drawing, even if she was deep in concentration. But the Clarke sitting behind the glass window wasn’t happy. Her lips were turned downward slightly, her cheeks were red and her eyes were puffy with dark circles underneath them. Lexa wanted nothing more than to take her friend in to her arms and do whatever it took to make her feel better, but she couldn’t bring herself to make that first step. She couldn’t let her heart control what her head had power over.

  
She must have been standing there for minutes, but it could have been hours for all Lexa knew. She wasn’t sure what made the blonde look up, but when she did blue eyes met green. Clarke had seen her and Lexa knew it.

  
Seeing her eyes face on, Lexa now saw the way tears were pooled in them and when they registered Lexa’s presence, they took on a pleading look. All Lexa had to do was open the door. But instead, she turned and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, let me know what you think below  
> or message me on tumblr with anything, including prompts for new aus!
> 
> madgirlbackhome.tumblr.com


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three weeks have passed since the Fourth of July and Clexa haven't spoken since

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see I've finally finished the outline so there will be 13 chapters!

Clarke hadn’t spoken a word to Lexa since the Fourth of July. She hadn’t spoken to the girl who was once one of her best friends in three weeks. While there had been three years during which they hadn’t spoken, those three weeks seemed three times as long as those three years. She’d thought, or hoped that after she’d seen Lexa outside the art cabin window that night two weeks earlier, that Lexa would break the silence. But instead she’d run.

  
At first there hadn’t been too many opportunities for interaction, but two more competition days had past, resulting in a win for each cabin, and they still didn’t talk. Lexa had busied herself during those days enough that she always had some excuse to not be near Clarke and Clarke had never pushed the matter. Clarke had told Lexa how she felt, now it was Lexa’s turn to talk.

  
The summer was nearly over and while for a time Clarke had been convinced that she would have her old friend back after the end of it, now she was starting to see that that wouldn’t be the case. The summer was like tasting the memory of the greatest thing she knew, and having it torn away just before she got to enjoy it one more time.

  
Clarke through herself in to being the best counselor she could be to her Arkers. The prank war continued, but Clarke left Raven to deal with it, not wanting to have to spend more time thinking about the Grounders than she had to. Besides that though, she listened to any problems the girls came to her with, and participated in nightly ghost story tellings by the light of their campfire.

  
Once the fire was out though, and the girls all gone to bed, Clarke would wander to the art cabin where she would spend hours perfecting the drawing that was taking over her nights and taking away her sleep. She’d never given any drawing so much attention. She’d perfected the tents and scenery and shaded in color on part of it. The drawing was done in pencil, black and white with only limited shades of color.

  
After finishing the scene of the girls at the fire pit, Clarke had moved on to a scene half hidden on the right side of the large, landscape page. This was the scene she spent hours on, constantly drawing and redrawing it and adding in new details. Two girls stood close, one with her back to a tree while the other leaned forward, hovering above her lips. Their hands were intertwined by their sides and their hair was matted with egg shells and yolk. Several trees away sat the third girl, the blonde, with her back against another tree and knees drawn to her chest. Her head rested against the bark with pain so clearly present on her face and a single tear falling from one eye.

 

* * *

 

_There was one week left of camp for the girls’ last summer at Camp Rothenberg, and it was the last competition day of the summer. The Arkers and Grounders were tied and it all came down to the result of the game of the day, Capture the Egg._

 

_The two teams were at a standoff. Each cabin had several team members in the other team’s jail neither had managed to reach the other team’s egg, though both had discovered the egg’s location._

_“Okay everyone, huddle up!” Costia announced to the team members closest to her, while keeping an eye on the Arker that was toeing the division line nearby._

_“We’re going to need a plan of attack.” Costia, Clarke, Harper, Monroe and Lexa all huddle together, ready to win the game once and for all._

_“If we’re going to send a few more people over, we’ll need someone to help Echo and Jess who are guarding our egg right now, so I can stay back and help them,” Harper volunteered. The other girls nodded. Harper was the slowest runner of the all so it made perfect sense._

_“We should play it off with a diversion,” Lexa suggested. “We should all start running toward their jail, as if we’re freeing our teammates from jail, but then have someone stay just behind the group and at the last second, spring towards the egg instead.”_

_“I like that idea,” Costia agreed while everyone nodded in agreement._

_“We should use our fastest runner for that,” Monroe added._

_“For sure,” Lexa nodded before turning towards Clarke, “Clarke, that’s definitely you. Do you think you’re up for it?”_

_Clarke stared at the girl with frizzy hair pulled back from her face in a simple single braid. She watched as Lexa’s thin pink lips formed the words. She was so distracted by the way the girl’s chapped lips moved that she nearly missed the question. “Yeah,” she spoke quickly, “Yeah I can totally do that.” For you, she nearly added._

_As they cheered quickly before walking innocently towards the division line, Clarke made a bet with herself. If she got the egg and won the competition for the Grounders, she would tell Lexa. And she would tell her the right way, she wouldn’t make the same mistake she had on the Fourth of July. She would do it right. She would tell Lexa that she didn’t just love her, but that she was in love with her._

_Lost in thought, Clarke missed the signal that it was time to run. It worked out though, because she was supposed to dawdle behind Costia, Lexa and Monroe who were all sprinting towards the jail. Arkers started to sprint towards the Grounders, trying to catch them and throw them in jail as well. They left the entire left side of the field open and Clarke quickly changed direction._

_The girl guarding the egg yelled for aid, but the Grounder distraction had worked. Clarke dodged the guard and made it in to the safe zone surrounding the egg. She grabbed the egg and watched the girl guarding her, yelling for help. She saw more Arkers coming to the girl’s help so Clarke made the decision to start sprinting back to her own side. The Arkers were coming towards her from all sides. And then she saw her own teammates. They had obviously managed to free everyone from jail, as they were crossing back over the division line, running towards Clarke. They started to form a wall around her, not caring if they were tagged as Clarke ran._

_She could hear her cabin mates cheering and she lifted the egg above her head with a victorious woot as she crossed the line. They’d won the game and they’d won the summer long competition._

_Several of the younger girls who had been watching the competition rushed on to the field holding cartons of fresh eggs, handing them out to the Grounders. As the winners, the Grounders would be able to smash the eggs on the Arkers heads._

_Everyone gathered in the center of the field and Clarke cracked the first egg. She took the winning egg and cracked it over the head of the Arker team captain, Luna, and everyone cheered. Clarke’s cheeks were hurting from smiling and cheering so much, but it didn’t bother her. They’d won. They’d won and now Clarke was going to fulfill her part of the bet._

_Clarke approached her friends as Anya came over with a pair of Ice kids and gave both Costia and Lexa a high five. Clarke watched as a young girl with long dark hair that fell over one eye in a way that must have been hindering her eyesight handed Lexa an egg, then Costia an egg. Clarke saw what happened next through tunnel vision, seeing it all happen in slow motion. From Costia’s face, she knew that the redhead had no intention of smashing her egg on the head of an Arker and Clarke watched a grin spread across her friend’s face as she took the egg in her hand and lifted it up, smashing it on Lexa’s head. Clarke smiled as a look of pure shock fell over Lexa’s face. She continued smiling as she watched Lexa return the favor, spreading the yellow yolk over bright red hair._

_Clarke registered what happened next just a moment after it happened. The fall of her smile was delayed and her brain processed it all in slow motion. Lexa and Costia were standing close as it was, closer as they smashed eggs on each other’s head. Costia wiped away the egg that was dripping down the side of Lexa’s face and left her hand there. She then brought her other hand up to Lexa’s other cheek. Clarke held her breath in anticipation of what she feared would come next._   
_Her fears were realized as Costia pulled Lexa toward her and kissed her. She kissed her hard and wound one hand around the brunette’s neck, pulling her closer as Lexa’s arms found their way around the other girl’s body, giving herself in to the kiss._

_The kiss seemed to last forever, but all Clarke could do was stare at her two best friends as they gave themselves to one another. People cheered for them, but when Harper told them to get a room, they pulled away. Clarke watched as their lips separated, but the girls remained attached to one another. She watched as they stared in to each other’s eyes and she watched as they both smiled happy smiles of relief._

_She couldn’t watch anymore, so she ran. Nobody paid her any attention, they were all too caught up in the result of the competition. She ran and she ran. She stumbled over branches and scratched her arms and legs against the foliage, but they barely slowed her down. She circled the camp twice until she finally stopped in the woods beside the Grounder campsite. She was out of breath and fell against a tree. She drew her knees in to her chest and sobbed against them. She saw there crying, alone, until she struggled to breathe against her hiccups._

  
_She wasn’t sure how much time had passed since the conclusion of the competition and she knew that Anya and the others were probably looking for her, but she made no move to leave. She was drained, both emotionally and physically._

  
_Clarke leaned her head against the tree and sat there in silence, trying to silence the disjointed thoughts raging through her head. She was pulled out of these thoughts though, by the sound of two girls approaching. She nearly announced her presence, but then she heard the voices more clearly. They were voices she would recognize in an instance._

  
_“Come here,” she could hear the smile in Costia’s voice._

_“Okay,” came Lexa’s giggle._

_She heard the unmistakable sound of lips meeting and Clarke covered her mouth to prevent a sob from getting out. The girls were not far from her, she could see the outline of their limbs from the other side of the tree, but she was hidden enough that they couldn’t see her._

_“People are probably wondering where we are, we should get back soon,” Costia spoke before Clarke heard the sound of another kiss._

_“Do we have to?” Lexa asked, sounding almost like a child._

_“Trust me Lex, the last thing I want to do right now is leave this privacy and those glorious lips of yours,” Costia’s remarks elicited a giggle from Lexa and another kiss. “But we really should get back. We should find Clarke.”_

_“Why Clarke?”_

_“Because she,” Costia paused and for a moment Clarke wondered if they’d seen her, but there was no way they could have. “Oh. You don’t…”_

_“I don’t what?” Lexa’s question was innocent and Clarke knew in that moment that Costia knew the one secret Clarke had been keeping._

_“Crap Lex. We need to get back, I really need to talk to Clarke,” Costia spoke hastily. They were gone moments later, sprinting through the woods holding hands, running to the Grounder campsite where Clarke was not._

 

* * *

 

Clarke had fallen asleep in the art cabin again and woke to someone gently tapping her shoulder. She groaned, rubbed her eyes and looked up, trying to discover who had woken her. It was Lexa.

  
“Oh shit, I fell asleep in here, didn’t I?” she asked the rhetorical question, not yet registering the fact that it was Lexa of all people who came to wake her up.  
“Yeah, umm Anya told me to come and get you. You’re late to breakfast,” the brunette spoke awkwardly.

  
“Why didn’t you just get Raven or Octavia to do it for you?” Clarke spat back angrily.

  
It took Lexa a moment to respond and Clarke had never seen her look so nervous. She glanced down at Clarke’s drawing, which Clarke promptly flipped over before Lexa could see it. The brunette tried to catch Clarke’s eyes which the blonde reluctantly offered. “I wanted to apologize. I wanted to apologize for kissing you the other week.”

  
It was definitely not the apology Clarke was looking for. “So that’s what you’re apologizing for Lexa? For kissing me? Not for running away from me? Not for leaving me again?”

  
“Leaving you was wrong as well, but I trusted your judgement in the moment while dealing with the campers. I was not in the correct frame of mind to deal with them,” she explained. Her speech was so formal and Clarke hated it.

  
“No Lexa,” Clarke grew more angry by the minute. She stood up quickly, causing Lexa to step back from her with equal speed. “You don’t get to leave me again then apologize for the wrong thing. You can’t act like it was the right thing to do, because it wasn’t. And you know what, I just realized? That’s what you do Lexa. You leave when you can’t handle things. You leave the people you love, you leave the people who need you and you keep doing it. And I don’t just mean when you left on the Fourth, I mean when you fucking left after Costia died.”

  
“I…I…” Lexa took a step backward, not having the words to speak.

  
As Clarke continued to speak, she walked toward the brunette. The brunette walked backwards as Clarke did so. “You fucking left me and our friendship. Did I really mean that little to you? Costia was my best friend too. And when she died I didn’t just lose one best friend but I lost you too. I reached out to you time and time again, trying to comfort you hoping you’d be able to be there for me as well, but you weren’t. You fucking left me.”

  
Clarke knew there were tears forming in her eyes, but she didn’t wipe them away, but rather simply continued backing Lexa in to a corner. “And you know what? Yeah, it would have been fucking nice to have you there. To cry with whenever I accidentally found a picture of Costia, or someone brought up the summer. But at least I had Wells. But then guess what. He fucking died too.” The surprise on Lexa’s face told Clarke that the girl had no idea. “Yeah. Two years ago. A robbery gone wrong. And I had nobody. Nobody! Nobody to turn to. I had lost the only three people I ever loved. My three best friends were gone from me. But then I went to college and met Octavia and Raven. And I really thought I would be okay. I had friends again for the first time in two years. But then you were here. You were here and I loved you again. I loved you and then you left me again. You fucking left again.”

  
They’d reached the edge of the room and Lexa backed in to a table. Clarke took one step closer to her. “So no Lexa,” she spat, “You don’t get to apologize if you’re going to apologize for the wrong thing. And you don’t get to leave again. Because this time, it’s me that’s leaving.”

  
With that she stomped out of the room, not looking back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think!  
> madgirlbackhome.tumblr.com


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa continues to be dense, until she doesn't and she makes a choice. A visit to Georgia costs Costia her life.

It took Lexa until Clarke had reached the door to realize she needed to tell girl to wait, but by the time her brain sent that message to her mouth it was too late.  
“Wait,” she spoke, after Clarke had already left the cabin and started across the green towards the mess hall. Until that moment Lexa had not thought of pushing Clarke away those years ago as a selfish act, but hearing Clarke lash out at her gave Lexa the realization she needed. She watched the way something broke behind those ice blue eyes. She saw it, because she’d seen it in herself. She wondered how long Clarke had been hiding that breaking of her soul behind smiles and laughter.

  
She knew she shouldn’t have done it, and that Clarke had obviously flipped it over for a reason, but Lexa couldn’t help but walk over to the drawing and flip it over. It wasn’t finished, which was something she could tell right away. But it was also so perfect and realistic. It was a sketch of the Grounder campsite, a continuous narrative of the years they spent there.

  
Lexa took in every detail of the unfinished drawing, observing the long sheet of paper from left to right. She smiled at the sight of the Trio in their tent, and their friends by the fire pit. She finally reached the far side of the drawing and her heart dropped. She couldn’t imagine how painful it must have been for Clarke to draw not only Costia and Lexa so in love, but to draw herself in so much pain. She wanted to yell at the two dimensional version of herself on the page. She wanted to yell at that fifteen-year-old version of herself to not kiss Costia back. To not let herself love her, to stop her from visiting that next summer. She wanted to tell the Lexa in pencil to find Clarke and hold her. She wanted to tell that girl that by loving Costia, she would lose her and that she would lose Clarke. Loving Costia was wonderful while it lasted, but it ruined her. It broke her heard. It broke Clarke’s.

  
She needed to find Clarke. She needed to make it better. Because if there was anything she was learning it was that love wasn’t weakness, losing it was. And she couldn’t stand to lose Clarke again. She carefully repositioned the drawing to the way it was when she found it, before running out of the art cabin. She noticed a group of girls walking with Roma and Tris towards the lake and Lexa realized that she must have spent more time in the art cabin than expected, as breakfast had ended and everyone was heading to their first activity.

  
Lexa didn’t have to start her first horseback riding lesson for another two hours, so she quickly started to look for the girl, until she remembered why her lessons were starting late. Normally she would have had the Arkers first thing in the morning, but that day they were going on a day-long hike and wouldn’t be back until night. They’d left for the hike halfway through breakfast. Clarke was gone.

  
Realizing there was nothing she could do until the girl returned, Lexa decided to use her free time wisely and headed towards the business office. The business office was where all the counselors kept their cell phones for the summer, as there was no service at the camp, and where there was a computer available for the counselors to use during their free time.

  
Lexa had yet to use the computer, but found gaining access to the internet fairly easy and she was able to log in to her Facebook relatively quickly. She typed Clarke’s name in to the search bar for the first time in too many years. She’d never defriended her, but she had blocked all of Clarke’s posts from appearing on her news feed, which is why she’d heard nothing of the girl’s life in three years.

  
Lexa covered her mouth as Clarke’s profile loaded slowly on the screen of the old camp computer. Her profile picture was a picture of her and Wells, both wearing birthday crowns. Lexa had forgotten that they’d shared a birthday. Her cover photo was a photo of Clarke, Lexa and Costia when they were eight, cheesing at the camera, their mouths like jack-o-lanterns with missing teeth.

  
She decided to scroll through Clarke’s timeline and found recent pictures of her in college. She was tagged in albums with mostly Octavia and Raven, as well as a few others; Monty, Murphy and Jasper. There were links of cute hedgehogs all of Clarke’s timeline, all posted there by Octavia. She’d reached January when she saw the anniversary post. Below a collage of pictures of Wells and Clarke growing up read the text, “It’s been two years since you’ve been gone. I still miss you every day Wells. I hear your laugh before every joke and every time I see anything Harry Potter related, I subconsciously say ‘Huffle le Puff’ in that voice you always used. You may have left this world two years ago, but you’ll always be with me. I miss you.” Lexa’s heart broke for the pain that Clarke was obviously still feeling.  
She continued to scroll through her friend’s timeline and eventually reached a date previous to their freshman year of college. At that point the dates flicked by quicker, as there were no photos she was tagged in, other than a few graduation photos her Dad had tagged her in. Posted chronologically three days before Clarke’s high school graduation was another memorial post.

  
This post was just a picture of Costia. Her bright red hair was puffed up around her face, her eyes were squeezed shut and she was smiling wide. Lexa knew without even reading the caption that Costia was sixteen in that photo. The caption read, “This was the last selfie you ever sent me Costia. We must have sent each other hundreds in the two short years we both had cell phones. You were sixteen and happy. Wherever you are now, I hope you still have your happiness. I can’t believe it has already been two years since you last sent me one of your crazy faced selfies. I miss you even still.”

  
No girl their age should have to post memorials for lost friends, let alone two. Lexa didn’t have to keep scrolling to know that the only other things she would find on Clarke’s timeline were memorial posts on the one year anniversaries of the deaths and the occasional photo her Dad tagged her in. It was clear to Lexa that the end of high school wasn’t something that Clarke was able to enjoy. And Lexa blamed herself for that.

 

* * *

 

_“I feel like I’m seeing the real world in summertime for the first time in my life,” Costia laughed, linking arms with Lexa as they strolled down the downtown strip in Lexa’s small town, having just finished eating more than their combined weight in sushi._

  
_“What do you mean?” Lexa asked in return._

  
_Costia stopped them at a crosswalk, unlinked their arms and through hers over Lexa’s shoulders. “I mean, the last time we were in public on a June 3rd we were six years old.”_

  
_Lexa couldn’t help but smile when Costia got sentimental. “That was ten years ago,” she grinned, “Before three hundred and sixty three days before we met.” The brunette wrapped her arms around her girlfriend’s waist._

  
_“And yet here I am, seeing what real people look like during the summer for the first time in what is basically forever. While I visit my most amazing girlfriend,” Costia’s grin matched Lexa’s as she leaned forward and kissed the girl._

  
_It had taken over six hours for Costia to drive from Tampa to Lexa’s home just outside of Atlanta and it had been her first long trip since getting her license, but it had been worth it. Lexa would be leaving for a summer program for gifted teens in two weeks and they’d planned on spending those two weeks never leaving each other’s side. The camp was in Washington D.C., so they’d planned on Costia coming there at the end of the summer after Lexa’s camp finished, so they could spend a week at Clarke’s dad’s house in Virginia. Spending the summer apart was something the three of them were still adjusting to._

  
_Lexa grinned in to the kiss and thought about how lucky she was. Her summer was to be bookended with time spent with the girl she’d been dating long distance for ten months. And not only that, but she’d be seeing her other best friend, Clarke multiple times during that summer. While Lexa was doing her camp, Clarke would be taking classes geared towards high school students at Georgetown. They would see each other all the time._

  
_“Come on,” Lexa pulled away from the girl and reached down to grab her hand, pulling her across the crosswalk. “Let’s go home and have some fun before my parents and Artigas get back.” Artigas had a lacrosse tournament that night and they probably wouldn’t be back for several hours, but Lexa didn’t want to have to worry about being interrupted._

  
_“Are you propositioning me?” Costia acted shocked before grinning and kissing Lexa’s cheek. They had sex for the first time the last night of camp the previous August and had had to wait until June to do it again. But in the three days they’d been together, they’d certainly made up for lost time._

  
_The girls got in to the car and Lexa buckled her seatbelt while Costia took a selfie on her cellphone. “Who’s that for?” Lexa asked, looking at the ridiculous face her girlfriend had just made._

  
_“Clarke,” the redhead responded. “We have a selfie war going on, to see who can send the weirdest face and I’m pretty sure I’m winning.”_

  
_Lexa laughed at the girl as she pulled out of the parking lot. Lexa was glad that Costia was still so close to Clarke. Sure, Lexa and Clarke texted still, but not nearly as often as Clarke and Costia did. Something felt off in Lexa’s interactions with Clarke and she couldn’t figure out why. Maybe Clarke felt weird about her two best friends dating. Lexa wasn’t sure, but she didn’t dwell on it._

  
_Costia turned up the radio and started singing along to some top 40 song. Lexa didn’t even pay attention to what song it was, she just kept looking over at the girl whose voice could crack mirrors. She didn’t care though, she loved watching Costia simply enjoying herself. She loved Costia._

  
_“I love you,” Lexa spoke. It wasn’t the first time she’d admitted it, but it felt special each time she said it. She glanced over at Costia who had briefly stopped singing._

  
_“I love you too, you sap,” grinned the redhead. It was the last time Lexa ever saw the girl’s lips turn up. The last time she saw the dimples form within the freckles of her cheeks. It was the last time she saw light dance across her happy green eyes. Because only moments after Lexa’s gaze returned to the road ahead of her, a green sedan swerved out of the opposing traffic lane and crashed in to them head on._

  
_Lexa screamed as the airbags went off. She screamed as she heard the crash of glass. The wind was knocked out of her, and the moment she regained enough awareness to look to her right, she saw the seat beside her was empty.  She remembered Costia getting distracted by her texts with Clarke and not putting on her seatbelt._

  
_“Costia!” she screamed as she took in the shattered windshield tinged with blood. She quickly tried to get away from the airbag, but nearly doubled over in pain. “Cos?” she pleaded. She struggled once more against the airbag, until the pain that came from her broken ribs caused her to pass out._

 

* * *

 

After logging out of her Facebook, Lexa had gone to teach her horseback riding lessons with the intention of finding Clarke the moment she returned to camp with the Arkers. As fate would have it though, that was not in the cards for her. During her last lesson of the day, a Boat girl had fallen off her horse and snapped a bone in her arm.

  
Knowing that she would have to go to the emergency room, Lexa had informed Anya of what had happened before taking the girl in her car and driving to the closest emergency room, one she herself had spent time in after she’d broken her arm.

  
As she sat in the waiting room with the girl, waiting to have her cast put on, Lexa couldn’t help but remember her own broken arm. She remembered Costia pushing her out of the tree. It was a joke that went wrong. But she also remembered the way that Clarke didn’t hesitate to jump down after her. Clarke hadn’t even waited a moment before risking injury herself for Lexa. She’d immediately taken control of the situation, telling Costia to get Anya, and holding Lexa while she’d cried out in pain. She knew that Clarke had always been there for her, but she’d never recognized how much it had meant to her.

  
By the time Lexa returned to camp with her casted Boat girl, it was already after dark and everyone was back at their campsites. Knowing they’d miss dinner, Lexa had taken the injured girl to dinner on the way back. Monroe, the girl’s counselor was waiting for them when they returned.

  
“Thanks,” she’d offered Lexa a smile. Briefly, Lexa wondered what Monroe knew about her fight with Clarke. After all, Monroe had been one of their good friends when they were younger as well.

  
She left the girl in Monroe’s care and went to search for Clarke, before running in to Anya.

  
“Have you seen Clarke?” Lexa asked, “Is she on watch duty tonight?” She’d seriously hoped she wouldn’t have to go to the Ark campsite and have to confront Raven as well. She was pretty sure that Raven hated her just as much as Clarke did.

  
“Tonight’s her night off,” Anya sighed sympathetically. Anya had watched the girls grow up, and had no problem figuring out what was going on between them. “She and Harper left for town almost an hour ago. Echo and Mel also have nights off tonight though, and they haven’t left yet. Maybe you can ask them to get a message to her? They’re waiting for a cab now.”

  
Lexa quickly thanked Anya before running off to where a cab and just pulled on to the campsite and stopped beside Each and Mel. After a horrible explanation of why Lexa needed to talk to Clarke, Mel smiled sympathetically, saying, “We know Lexa. We’re not idiots. I don’t know the details, but I know that you and Clarke have some things to figure out. And I really hope you do. You go, I’ll stay. I think I saw on the schedule that you have off tomorrow night anyway, so we’ll just trade.”

  
Lexa never knew Mel very well. She knew that Mel had been a camper at Camp Rothenberg from when she was ten to fifteen, and she was only a year younger than Lexa, but they’d never been in the same cabin. In an uncharacteristic show of appreciation, Lexa leaned forward and gave Mel a hug before getting in to the cab with Echo.

  
The town was nearly twenty minutes away, and Lexa’s nerves made it seem even further. At one point Echo had given her a swig from the flash she’d brought. Lexa downed a good share of the whiskey and let it burn her throat.

  
There was only one bar in the small North Carolina town and it was where the counselors always went on their nights off. She knew that’s where Clarke and Harper would be. As she opened the door to the Irish pub style bar, she was immediately greeted by loud cheering and music.

  
The source of the cheering was immediately obvious as she took a few more steps in to the bar. A group of people were crowded around the pool table, where Clarke and Harper had obviously just beat a pair of local twenty-something year old men. Clarke cheered with her arms above her head and from the smear of her eyeliner and the unfocused look in her eyes, Lexa could tell she was drunk.

  
Lexa stood there and watched as Clarke planted a kiss right on Harper’s lips. It was quick and Harper laughed it off, drunk as well. The two men had stared at them while they kissed, something that hadn’t escaped Clarke’s notice.

  
“Don’t worry there’s enough of me to go around,” she slurred, before approaching the first man and grabbing on to the front of his shirt. She pulled him towards her and planted a sloppy kiss on his lips. Everyone around them cheered and Clarke obviously took that was reason to continue. She wrapped her arms around him. He pushed a hand up her shirt and it was impossible for Lexa not to see him squeeze her breast beneath her shirt. After another few moments, Clarke pulled away and said, “Like I said, enough of me to go around. And I think it’s your friend’s turn.”

  
Lexa couldn’t watch this. She was ready to turn and leave when Clarke turned her head. Lexa stared at the girl whose eyes could barely focus on her as a result of the alcohol coursing through her veins. The blue eyes didn’t seem alive, there was something so lifeless in them. It broke Lexa more than she could admit even to herself. She come with the intention of apologizing for Clarke for real. For telling Clarke that she didn’t want to live another day with out her as a friend. But the pain that came from watching Clarke throw herself at that man broke her resolve.

  
She couldn’t bear to have Clarke watch her run away again, so she did the only thing her feet would let her do. She turned and ran in to the bathroom whose door she was standing beside.

  
Once she got in to the bathroom, she placed her hands on the sink counter and leaned over, trying to compose herself. She didn’t know why it hurt so much. Clarke should be allowed to kiss anyone she wanted. Lexa fought the feeling growing in her stomach, the one that explained why it had hurt her so much. She couldn’t let herself feel it. She'd promised herself she would never again.

  
As the door to the bathroom slammed open, Lexa turned around in surprise. Her shock multiplied as she saw who it was that had followed her. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was nevertheless.

  
“Clarke,” her voice shook as she said the girl’s name.

  
“What are you doing here?” Clarke slurred, her drunken words laced with anger.

  
“I..I…” Lexa stuttered. She’d gone over the speech in her head multiple times, but it was gone and Clarke was waiting impatiently. “I wanted to talk. To you.”

  
Clarke took a step forward and Lexa was brought back to the art cabin that morning, when Clarke had cornered her in to a table. “No,” she responded. “You don’t get to talk. It’s too late for talking.”

  
Lexa opened her mouth to respond, but before a word was out of her mouth, Clarke’s mouth was on her’s. After the shock of the action passed, Lexa found herself returning the kiss. She was only barely tipsy from the whiskey and Clarke was plastered, but Clarke’s lips were a drug and she was already addicted.

  
The kiss was rough and sloppy and they quickly got out of breath. Clarke pushed Lexa back in to the counter and it was almost too rough. Lexa could already feel a bruise forming on her lower back, but this time it was her who pulled Clarke back in to another heated kiss. Clarke’s thigh pushed between Lexa’s legs and the brunette instinctively hopped up on to the counter behind her.

  
Hands wound their way in to blonde hair and Lexa tilted her head back as Clarke’s lips moved away from her’s and down her neck. She moaned as Clarke sucked on her neck, leaving a purposeful mark.

  
The blonde pulled away from Lexa and before Lexa could complain, the girl’s fingers found the button on Lexa’s jeans. She paused only momentarily to look up at Lexa, who nodded. She didn’t ask for any more permission before unbuttoning and unzipping. Lexa lifted herself off the counter so Clarke could pull down her pants.

  
She scooted herself forward and spread her legs as Clarke settled between them. The blonde’s sharp nails dug in to her back as she helped her forward. Lexa placed her hands on the edge of the counter, gripping tightly.

  
Clarke didn’t bother with a slow build up after seeing how wet Lexa already was. Her tongue found where it was wanted quickly and her fingers plunged themselves inside of Lexa. It was fast and rough, just as their kisses had been and it didn’t take long for Lexa to cry out in pleasure.

  
As Lexa struggled to calm her fast beating heart and labored breathing, she grabbed Clarke’s head, bringing it toward her. Before she leaned in to kiss the girl she spoke, “Clarke, I…”

  
At the sound of Lexa’s voice, Clarke tore herself away from the girl. “No,” she spat, and the anger returned to her face. “You don’t get to talk, remember?”

  
Lexa reached forward, grabbing on to the belt loops on Clarke’s pants and her fingers hovered above the button and Clarke tore herself away again.

  
“Don’t touch me,” she glared in disgust at the half-naked girl. Lexa could almost feel the heat of the anger radiating off of Clarke. Lexa had never seen so much anger or disgust coming from the girl she’d once known so well. She knew this was when she should have dropped her mask of emotional indifference, but she couldn’t. She was too hurt.

  
The hurt on Lexa’s face must have been too repulsive for Clarke to stand, as she immediately turned around and exited the bathroom, leaving Lexa on the counter, half naked. It wasn’t until the door slammed shut that she allowed the tears that had been welling in her eyes to fall. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried.

  
Realizing that anyone could walk in at any time, Lexa pulled up her hands and buttoned them with shaky hands. She couldn’t leave though. She knew that she could bear to see Clarke look at her with that much disgust.

  
So she sat in the corner of the bathroom, knees pulled to her chest with her arms wrapped around them and cried until Echo found her nearly an hour later. She cried at the horrible firsts of that night. The first time anyone had touched her since Costia. The first time she’d cried in years. The first time she saw Clarke so angry. The first time she let herself admit that she loved Clarke. The first time she realized she’d missed her chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the support I've been getting with this fic! I love reading your comments and messages on tumblr! I know a lot happened in this chapter and I'd love to hear what you all thought about it


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke wakes up with a hangover, remembers the letter Costia sent her and gets outsmarted by a fourteen-year-old named Tris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this monster of a chapter comes directly as a result of my procrastinating writing my art history final paper

Clarke woke the next morning to the morning alarm with a wicked headache and a dull aching in her stomach that she didn’t want to think too hard about. She’d drunk enough to earn herself a hangover, but not enough that she didn’t remember the events from the previous night. She remembered every moment. She remembered kissing Harper. She remembered kissing the men who were likely ten years her senior and the way they groped her. She remembered wanting them to touch her. She remembered seeing Lexa at the bar, obviously hoping to talk to her. She remembered touching Lexa, remembered the way the girl’s body shook beneath her. She remembered wanting Lexa to hurt as much as she did. And she remembered the look on the girl’s face, the look of hurt that mimicked exactly what Clarke was feeling inside. She remembered feeling happy that Lexa was hurting.

  
In the light of day, Clarke’s sober thoughts were not quite as straightforward. She liked to think that she was a compassionate person, and that having had so much hurt in her life has made her not wish it on anyone else. She didn’t want to think about what she’d done, or how she felt about it. She blamed her hangover for her not wanting to process it, but deep down she knew it was the ache in her stomach that had nothing to do with alcohol that prevented her from processing it all.

  
While Raven attached her prosthetics, Clarke let out an audible groan. “I gather you’re not feeling too hot this morning?” Raven asked with a slight laugh.

“You could say that,” Clarke responded in a monotone voice.

“What happened last night? When Harper brought you back here last night, you were slurring your words and stumbling around like an elephant. The only thing I could make out was ‘fuck her,’ ‘fuck me,’ ‘it hurts,’ and ‘love’. You repeated love a lot.”

Clarke cringed at Raven’s words. While the events at the bar were clear in her head, her return to the cabin was a bit more fuzzy. “Lexa was at the bar. I don’t want to talk about it.” If she wasn’t going to think about herself, there was no way she was going to discuss it with Raven.

Raven was never one to push anyone in to talking about things they didn’t want to talk about, something Clarke was grateful for. Octavia played that role in their friend group, which made Clarke grateful for the fact that Raven was her co-counselor rather than Octavia. “Alright. Well if you want to talk about it, you know you can,” Raven responded. “Are you too hungover to get up for breakfast?”

Clarke set up in bed and shook her head, even though Raven couldn’t see her from the bottom bunk. “I’m fine, I think the fresh air will be good for me.”  
Lexa sat on the opposite end of the table from Clarke at breakfast. She didn’t once look up at Clarke, and after Clarke saw where she was sitting, she too never looked at the girl. After settling an argument between Charlotte and Reese at the Grounder table, Octavia returned to the counselor breakfast table and sat down in between Raven and Clarke.

“So what the fuck happened last night?” Octavia asked in a harsh voice, low enough that both Raven and Clarke could hear her, but not the rest of the distracted table full of counselors.

“What do you mean?” Clarke asked innocently as she purposely stared at her bowl of oatmeal.

Clarke could feel Octavia’s glare on the back of her head, but didn’t look up as Octavia continued to speak. “Oh I don’t know. I don’t know what happened, but I know something happened between you and Lexa last night. And this was even before Echo told me you were both out last night.”

“What makes you say that?” Clarke asked, finally turning to face the girl.

“Well for starters Lexa’s face. You know, I’ve hardly ever seen emotions on that girl’s face and I’ve been living with her for nearly two months. The most I’ve seen is during competitions when she gets excited about them, the occasional time she smiled in the first half of the summer when you two were talking, and of course the heart eyes.”

 

“Oh yeah, the heart eyes,” Raven nodded in agreement. Clarke offered them a confused look to which Raven explained, “She gets this look in her eyes whenever you’re around that can only be described as heart eyes. Like you’re the most amazing thing to grace this planet.”

“So anyway,” Octavia interrupted, not wanting to get off on a tangent. “She came home and I was writing a letter to Lincoln and she looked like someone killed her puppy. She wouldn’t say anything to me. She just crawled in to her bed and got in to the fetal position. She didn’t even get under the covers. And when she thought I was already asleep, I could hear her trying to hide sobs in her pillow. So let me repeat. What the fuck happened last night?”

At that point, the counselors were starting to get up from the table, getting ready to bring their campers to their first activity of the day. “Nothing,” she responded gruffly, before pushing back her chair.

Octavia rolled her eyes at the girl, “Well I hope you enjoy taking your campers to their morning fencing lesson with Lexa, because Anya asked Raven and I for help in the office, so Raven can’t drop them off.”

Seething, Clarke responded, “I have a class to teach this morning.”

“Well then, I suggest you hurry up and bring your Arkers to fencing so you can get back for your class,” Octavia retorted, before walking away with Raven, who had carefully managed to stay out of the heat of the conversation.

After seeing that their counselor was in a bad mood, the Arkers quickly put away their dishes and followed Clarke across the camp ground to the fencing studio. Lexa was waiting outside for them, obviously surprised to see it was Clarke and not Raven dropping them off.  
Lexa greeted the campers and ushered them inside. After the last Arker entered the studio, Clarke turned to walk away causing Lexa to speak out, “Clarke wait!”  
Against her better judgement Clarke paused before turning around.

“I just want to…” Lexa began to speak, but before she could finish her sentence, Clarke had pushed her up against the side of the studio. Luckily, the door to the studio had shut and there was no way for the campers to see them through any window.

“I told you I don’t want to talk to you,” Clarke spat, suddenly feeling the anger that had engrossed her the night before. She was so angry at Lexa, for leaving her after Costia, for not being there when Wells died and for leaving her after she admitted her feelings for her. Even with Lexa so close to her, she felt alone. And while that hurt more than anything else, she transformed that hurt in to anger.

Clarke refused to look at Lexa’s eyes as she kept her pushed up against the side of the building, choosing instead to focus on her lips and the gasp that had escaped them as her body had hit the wood with a thud. She had one hand gripped tight around Lexa’s side, her thumb pressed firmly in to her ribs.

“Okay,” Lexa spoke, disobeying Clarke’s orders. “I hurt you. You can hurt me. It’s okay.”

The words that came out of Lexa’s mouth were not what Clarke was expecting and she didn’t want to think about their implication. Not wanting Lexa to say anything else that would hurt that ache in her stomach, Clarke roughly pushed her lips against Lexa’s. It was almost a violent kiss, one that Lexa didn’t return.  
After she pulled away, Clarke made the mistake of looking up into Lexa’s eyes. She saw her own hurt mirrored there, but she also saw what Raven and Octavia had called heart eyes. She had never noticed them before. She saw the way they looked at her, a mix of hurt and adoration. It scared Clarke. It scared Clarke to know that she was hurting someone who cared about her. It scared her to realize that she didn’t care. She didn’t care, except for the dull aching in her stomach. The dull aching in her soul.

Unable to bear the emotions starting to bubble up in her, Clarke walked away, leaving Lexa without a second glance.

 

* * *

 

_Clarke sat on the plane, staring out the window while her dad sat beside her. The last minute flights from D.C. to Florida hadn’t been cheap, but Mr. Griffin had booked them the moment he received the call from Mrs. Woods telling him of Costia’s fate. She’d called him the morning after the crash, knowing that Clarke deserved to be one of the first to know, and that Lexa would need Clarke now more than ever._

_Mr. Griffin had booked the flights to Florida to attend the wake and funeral planned for later that week before he had told Clarke about Costia’s death before breakfast. He’d held her as she’d cried. And after Lexa didn’t pick up her calls, assured Clarke that she probably wasn’t thinking about being around the phone, after all she had broken two ribs in the crash, and that she was probably in the car with her mom, driving down to Costia’s family’s home._  
_When Clarke told Mr. Griffin that she didn’t want to talk on the plane ride, he didn’t try and coerce her into talking. Instead he nodded and took the middle seat while she sat by the window and took out the letter._

_It was a letter Clarke had read multiple times since she first received it that September, two weeks after they’d left Camp Rothenberg as campers for the last time. Reading it on the plane on the way to Costia’s funeral, however, each word proved to be more precious to Clarke than the last. It read:_

_Clarke,_

_I want to start by saying that it would probably have been more polite for me to have said this to you in person while we were still at camp, but I never had the ability to form speeches the way Lexa can, or speak from the heart like you. Sure, I give a mean hype speech before competitions, but that’s not the same as admitting you made a mistake. Also I tend to go on tangents when I talk in person, which apparently also translates to paper._

  
_I guess I should start by saying that I feel like I made a mistake, but at the same time it’s not a mistake. The mistake was not telling you how I felt about Lexa, especially when I knew how you felt about her. You never had to say the words, but I could tell that you loved her, that you were in love with her. At first I hadn’t been sure, but I think it was halfway through the summer that I really noticed. I don’t know what changed, if anything did, but after the Fourth of July it was so clear, but I also didn’t think you would act on it._

  
_I love Lexa. I’m in love with Lexa. And I think I always have been. I don’t need to tell you how precious she is. She is pure heart and gives openly with that large heart of hers. I don’t say this to rub it in your face that we’re together now, because that’s the furthest thing from what I want. I just mean to say that I let my love for her come before my friendship with you, and that wasn’t right, because I love you._

  
_From the beginning of our friendship, since the Trio first formed, I felt a connection to you Clarke. Maybe it was because we were the most similar, both headstrong and stubborn. We were more outwardly abrasive than Lexa. I think it’s because of us that she’s become more stubborn. But maybe the reason I felt so connected to you was because our hearts are so similar. We don’t fall in love blindly, we’ve both seen how nothing about love it permanent._

  
_I don’t know if finally kissing Lexa was a mistake or not. I don’t know how long it will be until I know for sure. I think that had I not, I still would have had you both for life long friends, and I would have been happy with that. But I did kiss her, and now I have her to love. But I can only be okay with that not being a mistake if it means I still have you as my best friend, because I can’t imagine a world where we aren’t friends Clarke. I can’t imagine a world without the Trio, without the Three Musketeers. I can’t imagine a world without Costia, Clarke and Lexa._

  
_I will always love you Clarke and you will always be my best friend. You were the first girl to befriend the weird little ginger and her oversized stuffed elephant. We’re forever and always, okay?_

 

_With Love,_

_Costia_

 

_After the first time she’d read it, Clarke had called Costia right away to confirm that their friendship was still important to her. Even after years of spending their summers together, it was the letter from Costia that had strengthened their friendship more than anything._

  
_Clarke felt her eyes welling up with tears as she read the letter again. Costia had written about not being able to imagine a world without them being friends, and she would never have to know that world. But Clarke, Clarke would have to now live in a world without Costia. She was sixteen and flying to bury her best friend. It was something no teen should ever have to do._

  
_After reading the letter several more times, Clarke fell asleep against the window, exhausted from spending hours crying and being emotionally drained. She was just glad that she would have Lexa to go through it all with._

 

* * *

 

Clarke managed to get back to the art cabin only moments after the Grounders had arrived. Because the art cabin was close to the mess hall, they hadn’t needed to be escorted from breakfast to the art cabin.

  
The girls were all retrieving their sketches from their cubbies when she arrived. What Clarke liked best about the classes she taught to the older girls was that they didn’t need as much direction, and that they could be trusted to do things on their own. For example, the Grounders all knew that their class that day would be spent continuing to work on their project from the last time they had art class. The assignment had been to sketch something important to them. Clarke had given them free reign, allowing them to choose any noun, a person, place, thing or idea to depict.

  
Normally, Clarke would have spent some time going around the class, giving suggestions and aiding with shading before returning to work on her own sketch, but Clarke couldn’t bring herself to take her sketch out and continue working on it. After returning from the hike the day before, Clarke had nearly finished it, she was missing only one scene in the continuous narrative. Technically it could have been complete, but Clarke felt as if the space in front of one of the tents was too empty and needed to be filled, but she had yet to decide what to fill it with. So instead of working on her own art, Clarke through herself in to helping others.

  
The Grounders had picked a variety of different things to depict as something they loved. There were scenes from sporting events, families and even a pet fish. She was walking over to the table that held Tris, Reese and Charlotte when she realized they were arguing. She didn’t want to deal with petty teenage arguments, but unfortunately, they were in her job description.

  
“Girls, what’s going on?” she asked as she approached the table.

  
“Nothing,” Reese snapped at Clarke after shooting an annoyed look at Charlotte.

“You girls are what, fourteen?” Clarke sighed, “Do you really need me to separate you? Do I need to put you at different tables?”

“We’re fine Clarke,” Charlotte spoke, anger still obviously present in her voice, “Some of us just don’t seem to appreciate what others are drawing for what they love.”

Clarke quickly glanced down at their three pages. Tris was sketching what looked like a pile of fencing swords, Reese had drawn the Rothenberg lake, distinguished by the camp flag flying above it, and Charlotte had drawn a face. It was clear that Charlotte had drawn and erased her sketch multiple times and hadn’t gotten very far. Charlotte was actually one of the better artists in the class and it surprised Clarke that she was struggling so much. She wondered who the face was going to turn in to.

“Clarke, can I talk to you in private?” Tris asked. Tris was the quietest of the three girls, Clarke was surprised by her request.

“Sure,” Clarke nodded, gesturing for her to follow her in to the back room. Clarke closed the door behind them, as there was obviously a reason Tris had wanted the conversation to be private. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

Leaning against a kiln Tris sighed, “My friends are idiots.” At the confused look on Clarke’s face, Tris explained, “Okay, so I know Octavia and Lexa are my counselors, but I don’t think Octavia is as equipped to talk about this as you are. And frankly, Lexa scares me a bit.”

Clarke couldn’t help but laugh at Tris’ impression of Lexa, before remembering how she herself felt about Lexa, and stopped. “Why are they idiots?” she asked.

“Because they’re too stubborn to admit that they’re disgustingly in love with each other,” Tris explained. Tris must not have seen Clarke tense at the mention of love, as she continued on, “What’s worse is that they’ve both told me, but also both sworn me to secrecy so it’s not even like I can tell either of them how the other feels.”

“If they’re that much in love, why do you think they’re arguing so much? Don’t you think they would have figured it out?” Clarke asked, not understanding how much her words related to her own situation with Lexa.

“I think it’s because they’re scared of getting hurt. They’re scared that the other won’t reciprocate their feelings,” Tris thought out loud. “I mean, I’m no expert on love, but that must be it.”

Clarke decided to tread carefully with her next question, “So why didn’t you think Octavia would have been able to help you with this? Don’t get me wrong, just because I’m not your counselor that doesn’t mean I’m not here to help you, but Octavia does know her fair share about love. She’s been dating her boyfriend for nearly a year now.”

Clarke couldn’t quite figure out why Tris was looking at her like she was an idiot until the words tumbled out of her mouth, “Because you know what it’s like to grow up best friends with someone and fall in love with them. Don’t you? How did you and Lexa figure it out?” Seeing the look of defeat on Clarke’s face, Tris added, “Oh. You haven’t. Wow. Girls are dumb, aren’t they? Knowing this makes me real happy I’m straight.”

With that, Tris walked out of the back room and back to the table where her friends were still arguing. Clarke remained in the back room, one hand resting on the top of the kiln as she came to the realization that there was a fourteen-year-old more observant than she was.

That night, after her campers had all gone to bed, Clarke had left the Arker campsite with the intention of return to the art cabin and working on her drawing. Her feet, however, had a different destination in mind and brought her to the knoll around the curve of the lake. She sat beneath the tree that she convinced Costia to push Lexa out of, on the knoll she’d nearly kissed Lexa on and years later did, looking out over the lake that raised her.

Clarke didn’t hear anyone coming until a soft, “Oh,” came from the silence and she turned around. “I didn’t think anyone would be here,” Lexa spoke. The brunette gestured behind her towards where she’d come from, “I’ll go.”

“No,” the word came out of Clarke’s mouth at almost a whisper and thinking Lexa hadn’t heard her she repeated it louder, “No. You can stay.”

Lexa seemed to consider leaving, and part of Clarke wished she would, but instead she took a seat, leaving plenty of space between herself and Clarke. Clarke wondered if she was scared she would hurt her again.

They sat there in silence for nearly half an hour, both looking straight ahead over the lake. Clarke wondered what Lexa was thinking and why she wasn’t talking. She then remembered how insistent she’d been about not wanting her to talk.

Somehow, they both broke the silence at the exact same moment. As Clarke said, “I’m sorry I was a bitch,” Lexa spoke, “I’m sorry I didn’t stay.”

Both girls turned their heads to look at each other, smiling slightly at the coincidence of choosing to speak at the same time after sitting in silence for half an hour. Clarke gestured for Lexa to speak first.

“After Costia died, I lost it. I mean I really lost it. At one point I wouldn’t even speak to my parents or brother. After a while I realized how silly that was, but I still wasn’t okay. I closed off to everyone. Love was weakness, so I avoided it like the plague. And that meant friendships too. I couldn’t bear to even think about you, because I couldn’t think about you without thinking about Costia. Or at least, that’s what I told myself. Since seeing you again, I started to realize I couldn’t think about you because I was scared that I wouldn’t have control of whether or not I lost you. By walking away from our friendship, I made the decision on my own. But seeing you again almost two months ago now changed that. You were real again and I couldn’t no be your friend,”

Lexa’s voice shook as she spoke and Clarke moved over to sit closer to the girl.

“And I was fine with being your friend again. It was safe. But then you told me that you used to be in love with me and you kissed me. Clarke I thought you were straight!” Lexa paused a moment before continuing, “I was confused and all I could think about was how love was weakness, so I ran. And I kept running. Then you told me about what my leaving did to you, and Wells and I think that’s what changed everything. It shouldn’t have taken that, but it did. That’s what made me realize how much of a total bitch I was being. God Clarke, I was so selfish. I couldn’t see how much I hurt you.” Her voice continued to shake as she finished her speech, “I think that’s also what it took for me to realize that I loved you too, I think I always have to some extent. And it’s because of that that I’m okay with you hurting me, because I love you and I’m willing to take it if it means I can be close to you.”

Lexa looked sheepishly at Clarke, her eyes pleading for a response, one that Clarke didn’t have. Her feet begged to move, to take her far from the person who caused her pain, but the ache in her soul begged to find solace in Lexa’s embrace. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she finally spoke, admitting it to herself for the first time. “I don’t want anymore pain. I don’t think I can handle it anymore.” Clarke’s chin was quivering and she could feel her eyes pricking. She tilted her head back in an attempt to hold back the tears. “I thought I’d gotten over the pain after I became friends with Octavia and Raven, I didn’t think it would be so easy for it to return.” As much she tried to stop them, the tears fell anyway. Silent wet streaks silently fell down her cheeks lit by the moon. “I just want the hurting to stop,” she let out with a soft sob.

Not missing a beat, Lexa pulled Clarke in to an embrace. She let the girl’s silent tears soak her shirt as she stroked her soft blonde hair. “I promise to never hurt you again Clarke. I don’t want you to hurt. I won’t leave, I promise. I want to stay.”

There was no need for them to speak as Clarke’s tears dried up. She stayed in Lexa’s arms for several more minutes until she remember something Lexa had said. “You said I used to love you,” Clarke stated, causing Lexa to nod her head. “That’s not all of it though. I still do. I mean, I love you Lexa. I’m in love with you.” She pulled out of Lexa’s arms so that she could see her reaction.

Lexa’s reaction was worth it. Clarke watched her eyes light up under the light of the moon and the corner of her lips turn up in to the sweetest, most genuine smile. “I love you too Clarke. I’m sorry it took so long for me to realize it.”

Clarke reached a hand up and placed it gently on the side of the other girl’s face. Cautiously, watching Lexa’s green eyes the entire time, she brought herself closer until their noses brushed and her lips hovered above the other girl’s.

“Kiss me,” Lexa whispered, her lips causing static on Clarke’s in their close proximity. Clarke obeyed Lexa and touched their lips together. It was gentle and cautious. They kissed with the hesitancy of a first kiss and the certainty of lovers. There was no urgency in the kiss, no need to force anything. It was the opposite of the angry kisses Clarke had given her that morning and the night before.

After several minutes, Clarke’s arm wrapped itself around Lexa and pulled her closer. Clarke could feel the brunette’s uncertainty in the stiffening of her muscles and the intake of her breath. She wanted to assure the girl she wasn’t going to hurt her. Clarke found Lexa’s hand and withdrew it from behind her neck, moving it below her shirt and resting it on her stomach. Lexa’s hand felt cold, but alive on Clarke’s stomach. “I want you to touch me,” Clarke breathed before cringing as she remembered telling Lexa the night before how she was disgusted by her touch. “I want to feel your touch.”

Lexa rested her forehead against Clarke’s. “Okay,” she whispered back. She pulled back slightly to look at the blonde for confirmation as she lowered her hands to the bottom of Clarke’s shirt. Clarke nodded slightly and Lexa pulled Clarke’s shirt over her head. She then pulled her own off. Clarke could feel Lexa’s gaze, remaining on her face, but Clarke couldn’t help but let her eyes wander down Lexa’s torso.

Clarke took in the swell of Lexa’s breasts beneath a plain beige bra and her tan, taught skin over defined abs. Her eyes were then drawn the disruption of clean skin above her right hip. Instinctively, Clarke reached out to touch it before quickly pulling her hand back, not wanting to overstep.

“It’s okay,” Lexa confirmed before scooted closer to the girl and grabbing her hand, placing it gently on the tattoo.

Clarke traced her fingers gently over the design, and act that felt more intimate than anything she’d ever done before. Clarke had seen photos of watercolor tattoos before, but had never seen one in real life before. It was a feather whose tips fell off into simple birds, but it was more than that. It was them and Clarke knew she was the only other person alive who would know it. The splashes of color were the day they met, their promises to be best friends forever. They were drunken admissions and fingers calmly forming braids in hair. They were late night pranks and yolk dripping down faces. They were tears and laughter. They were yellow, red and purple. They were Clarke, Costia and Lexa.

Clarke had a thousand questions and a thousand more statements, and Lexa answered one of the question before she could even form the words to ask it, “I got in on my eighteenth birthday. It was the one day I let myself feel. It served as a memory for the things I wanted to forget, for the feelings I wanted to leave behind.”

“It’s beautiful,” Clarke finally spoke.

“You’re beautiful,” Lexa returned, before blushing as she realized she’d spoken the words out loud, rather than thought them.

“I love you,” Clarke smiled, before kissing her. And just because she could, Clarke traced her fingers over the tattoo again. Lexa maneuvered her body so that Clarke was sitting between her legs and wrapped her arms around the blonde. Clarke sank in to the skin-to-skin contact and leaned her head back against the girl. That was enough.

The next night, Clarke would force Octavia to spend the night with Raven and would spend the night carefully exploring every inch of Lexa’s body until she returned the favor, but for now sitting there was enough.

They sat there in each other’s arms, talking about everything and nothing. Lexa told Clarke about how she still struggled with blaming herself for Costia’s death, and Clarke told Lexa that she blamed herself as well. Clarke told Lexa about Costia’s letter and promised to let her read it. They sat for hours until they finally fell asleep in each other’s arms, Clarke’s fingers wound around the purple, yellow and red friendship bracelet encircling Lexa’s wrist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, that happened. Let me know what you all think! Only two more chapters left in this fic!  
> And as always, feel free to send prompts to my tumblr (madgirlbackhome.tumblr.com)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day has finally arrived, the last competition between Arkers and Grounders, capture the egg. Plus Costia's funeral.

It was the morning of the last competition day and tensions were running high. Anya had already broken up a fight between an Arker and a Grounder and had reprimanded a Boat girl for making fun of a Mountain girl. While the Fire cabin had a clear lead over the Ice cabin, meaning the results of the day’s competition would have no bearing on the age divisions outcome, both the Arkers and Grounders and Mountain girls and Boat girls were in tied situations.

The tension was high at the campers tables and had managed to spill over to the counselor breakfast table. Monroe and Harper were sitting close, whispering about their strategy. Every once in a while, one of the cousins would look in the direction of Maya and Echo, making sure their rivals weren’t listening in. Clarke and Raven sat across the table from Lexa and Octavia. The co-counselors spoke to one another, but not about strategy, for they were afraid of the pair across the table hearing them. No words were spoken across the table, but below it, one of the girls pulled out of her flip flop and ran her foot up the bare leg of the woman across from her. At what could only have been Clarke’s touch, Lexa flinched. It was only just enough a flinch for Clarke to know she hit her mark. Both Octavia and Raven seemed oblivious to what was going on under the table.

“I think we should go with the war paint again,” Octavia suggested.

Clarke’s foot had now reached past her knee, and while Lexa wouldn’t give the girl the satisfaction of turning to look at her, she was still distracted. It took her several moments to register that Octavia was speaking to her. “What? Oh, umm yeah.”

“Are you okay?” Octavia asked inspecting Lexa’s face. Lexa was unable to drop her mask of indifference in time, but nodded. “You sure?” Octavia asked again, “Because you look constipated or something.”

 

Lexa could feel her cheeks turning red and she quickly tried to compose herself, “I uhh, I gotta pee.” She didn’t even bother to speak in correct English and pushed her chair back from the table abruptly, causing Clarke’s foot to fall with a thud to the ground. Out of the corner of her eye, Lexa saw Clarke wince, but otherwise not look up from her conversation with Raven.

 

Lexa didn’t actually have to go to the bathroom, but decided to head there anyway. She stood by the sink and was splashing water on her face when the door swung open and felt a figure approach her, winding her arms under Lexa’s and curling them to rest her hands on her shoulders. Even if there hadn’t been a mirror in front of her, reflecting Clarke’s face, she would have known it was the blonde.

  
If Clarke could play dirty, then so could Lexa. She turned off the sink and grabbed paper towels with which to dry her hands, ignoring the girl latched on to her. As Lexa leaned to the side to throw the paper towel away, Clarke’s lips worked their way up Lexa’s neck.

  
Lexa abruptly turned around in Clarke’s arms, careful not to knock Clarke’s head with her own. The brunette glanced down at Clarke’s lips and grinned. She then watch as the girl’s blue eyes dilated and a similar smile found its way on to her lips. Lexa closed the distance between them until their lips were just barely brushing.

  
Instead of pushing their lips together though, Lexa, smirked and said, “I know what you’re doing,” their lips brushed with static was Lexa’s moved, “And I’ll have you know that I can’t be distracted. Today will be a victory for the Grounders. The girl pulled away and turned to leave the room, seeing Clarke’s look of frustration through her reflection in the mirror.  
Lexa had no qualms about leaving her there, because for once it was actually the right thing to do. Unlike the first time she ever did it to Clarke.

 

* * *

 

_The days leading up to the funeral went by in a blur. For all Lexa knew, she could have been drugged for what little she remembered of them. Not even the pain from her broken ribs could bring her in to the moment. She knew it was her parents who figured out how to get Costia’s body back to Florida. She knew they were the ones holding it together for Lexa’s sake and for Mrs. Crewe’s sake. She knew that at some point she’d gotten in the car with her parents and brother and had driven down to Florida where they’d gotten a hotel room only several minutes from the Crewe home._

  
_It wasn’t until the day of the funeral that Lexa finally found herself leaving the haze that had enveloped her. It dawned on her that morning that she hadn’t spoken a word in the four days since the accident, not even to the police who came to the scene of the accident, nor the doctors at the hospital, let alone her own family._   
_She felt bad for not being appreciative of what her parents were doing for Costia, but above all she hated herself for not being there for Ruth, Costia’s mother, who had lost her daughter. Lexa knew that Ruth had loved Costia more than the average mother loves her daughter and Lexa knew that it was partly because Ruth had had Costia when she was a senior in high school. Costia had been the only constant thing in Ruth’s life since then. Costia had been the one to convince her mother to keep the baby Ruth had found herself surprisingly pregnant with only a few years earlier. While Ruth worked tirelessly to earn enough money so that Costia could go to camp every summer, Costia had never once complained about watching her little sister. But now, Costia was gone and Lexa had failed to offer her condolences to Ruth._

  
_At the funeral home, just moments before they would departing for the church for the funerary service, Lexa left her parents side and approached Ruth who was struggling with the squirming toddler in her arms. The toddler wasn’t yet old enough to realize that they were burying her older sister in a few hours and just wanted to go play._

  
_“Let me,” Lexa spoke, her first words in days as she extended her arms to the toddler. Ruth gave her an appreciative smile and handed her deceased daughter’s girlfriend her younger child, grateful to have even just a moment to concentrate on the last moments she would have with Costia._

  
_Ruth wrapped her arms around Lexa, slightly squishing the child between them before brushing a tear off her face and saying, “I’m glad she had you for all the years she did. And Clarke of course. And I’m glad you were able to love each other, even if it wasn’t only for a year.”_

  
_“I wish she was still here,” Lexa choked, her eyes brimming with tears for the first time since Costia’s body was propelled through her windshield._

  
_Ruth offered her a sad smile before saying, “We get today to cry Lexa, but after today we need to be happy. We need to not dwell on her death. She would hate that.”_

  
_“She never knew what to do around crying people,” Lexa couldn’t help but choke out a laugh that she immediately regretted._

  
_“She’d want us to laugh,” Ruth comforted. “She always told me she loved your laugh. So don’t think about how she died, think about how she lived.”_

  
_Lexa nodded and remained by Ruth’s side, holding the baby for the remainder of the wake, the car ride to the church and during the funeral service. She only got up to give a joint eulogy with Ruth about Costia. It had been a last minute decision, one that surprised her parents, but both she and Ruth knew it was the right thing to do._

  
_They spoke without a script and candidly about the girl they both loved. They offered a few short anecdotes about the girl, Lexa even bringing up the fact that she once pushed her out of a tree. The audience laughed along with them, because they knew Costia would want them to not be somber. Lexa thought she heard the laugh of the other girl she grew up with, but couldn’t bring herself to look for the blonde hair._

  
_It was at the cemetery that Lexa came face to face with the blonde. She’d seen Mr. Griffin from afar and knew that Clarke must have been nearby. And she was. It was as they placed flowers on top of the coffin, that they saw each other. With the toddler on her hip, Lexa placed a flower on top of Costia’s coffin at the same moment Clarke placed her’s._

  
_Clarke extended her arms to Lexa saying, “Lexa,” trailing off, ready to hug the girl she loved and the girl she considered her best friend._

  
_Lexa stared at Clarke for a long moment. Their entire friendship replayed within moments in front of her. There was hardly a moment that didn’t include Costia. Even Costia’s death was tinged with Clarke. If Costia hadn’t been sending Clarke a photo, she would have put on her seatbelt and she likely wouldn’t be dead. Everything about Clarke was tinged with Costia and Lexa couldn’t stand to look at her._

  
_So Lexa turned away from the blonde, ignoring the pull in her stomach, the one that wanted nothing more than to be in the comforting embrace of her lifelong best friend. That was the moment she decided that love was weakness._

 

* * *

 

“Hope you guys win!” Monroe shouted at Octavia and Lexa. Seeing Clarke’s annoyed reaction she responded with a shrug, “What? Gotta root for my former cabin!” 

She brushed egg yolk off on her pants, leftover from the egg she’d crushed on Echo’s head after the Mountain girls had one their game of capture the egg. She cleared off the field with her campers, ready to watch the final competition of the summer, the Grounders vs. Arkers game of capture the egg.

 

The teams stood on the dividing line, ready for the game to begin. The Grounders appeared strong with their matching warpaint while the Arkers showed their strength with their menacing looks.

  
“You guys are going down,” Octavia taunted the Arkers, and more specifically Clarke and Raven.

  
Clarke simply smirked in response before looking directly at Lexa as she spoke, “Oh I already went down last night, several times in fact.”

  
Lexa turned bright red beneath her war paint as the few campers who had heard Clarke started laughing, her statement not going over any of their heads. As she tried to think up a good comeback, Anya blew her whistle and the game commenced.

  
The game seemed to go on much longer than past games. Both teams had campers in jail, campers rescued and had placed several attempts on running towards the egg, neither managing to actually retrieve either egg.

  
“Team huddle!” Octavia called. Tris, Reese, Charlotte and two other girls circled up with Octavia and Lexa, leaving one girl to guard their egg just in case. “We need a game plan.”

  
Lexa had an idea, it was the one that had won her the game all those years ago and she didn’t need to worry about Clarke telling the Arkers about it, as she was safely in their jail. “We’re going to pretend that we’re going to jail to free our girls, but Charlotte since you’re our fastest runner, you’re going to stay in the back and as soon as they start trying to tag the rest of us, you run to the egg.”

  
They loved her plan and began to set it up. Just before they were set to run Lexa held back to talk to Charlotte. “I was thinking,” she said, “I don’t know what you’ve told Reese about how you feel about her, but you should go for it. Right after we win this, kiss her.”

  
Charlotte looked up to her counselor in confusion, “You think that’ll work? All we’ve been doing lately is fighting. What if she gets mad?”

  
Lexa briefly remembered Clarke mentioning something to her about talking to Reese during art one day, but Lexa had been too distracted by the blonde’s nakedness at the time that she couldn’t remember exactly what it was she’d said. “I think there’s a good chance it’ll work,” Lexa spoke with confidence. “But only if we win. So you’ve got to run your hardest. Okay?”

  
Charlotte nodded and they all ran. Lexa tried to block the Arkers who sprinted towards her from reaching her campers, hoping to throw them off of Charlotte. She could hear Clarke in the distance behind her yelling something. She’d clearly realized what they were doing, but from jail was unable to communicate it with her campers.

  
Lexa was tagged after only moments, but she knew it didn’t matter when she heard her campers cheering. She turned around and saw Charlotte, egg in hand, sprinting towards the division line, leaving Arkers in her dust as she sprinted past them. Lexa cheered Charlotte on and as soon as she crossed the line, started running with the other campers back to their side to celebrate.

  
Reese was only feet in front of her, and the moment they reached Charlotte, Reese put a hand on either side of Charlotte’s face and kissed her full on the mouth. Lexa’s jaw dropped as she realized what was going on. She watched as Reese’s cheeks turned pink and she pulled away sputtering out an apology. Her apology, however, was cut off by Charlotte kissing her in return.

  
“You stole my move,” Charlotte laughed as soon as they pulled apart. “I was going to do that.” They both laughed and their laughter intensified as Charlotte noticed she had crushed the winning egg in her hand in the heat of the kiss.

  
Younger girls approached the Grounders and handed them eggs. The Arkers all lined up, depressed and annoyed looks on their faces as they prepared for their punishment. Lexa thanked a Fire kid for her egg before she skipped, yes skipped, over to the blonde Arker counselor.

  
“I can’t believe you used that again,” Clarke shook her head.

  
“I can’t believe you didn’t warn your girls about it,” Lexa smirked back. “But I’ll tell you what, since I feel bad for using it, I won’t crush this egg over your head,” she gestured to the egg in her hand.

  
“Really?” the blonde asked hopefully.

  
“Nope!” Lexa laughed back as she quickly closed the distance between them and crushed it on the girl’s blonde curls.

  
Clarke’s mouth widened in shock before she regained some of her composure. She reached on top of her head and grasped a handful of the liquid and spread it across Lexa’s face.

  
Lexa gasped, her own shock mimicking Clarke’s from the moment before. Clarke laughed as she grabbed on to Lexa’s shorts by the belt loops, closing the remaining distance between them. The blonde brushed the excess yolk off Lexa’s lips before replacing it with her own lips.

  
“There’s egg in our kiss,” Lexa laughed after pulling away, not wanting to have the kiss last too long when she was surrounded by campers. She still needed to remain somewhat professional.

  
“It’s a good thing I love you then,” Clarke smiled back.

  
Lexa paused and felt the smile on her face falter. It was the first time either of them had said those words since the night earlier that week when they finally admitted their feelings for each other. They didn’t scare Lexa anymore though and she didn’t want Clarke to think they did. So when she responded, she said something knew. She used the word neither of them had ever said about the other. “I guess it’s a good thing I have such a great girlfriend then.”

  
She watched as the slight worry in Clarke’s eyes that came from Lexa’s pause transformed in to glee. She kissed her quick and chastely once more after repeating the word herself, “I’ve got a pretty great girlfriend myself too.”

  
Lexa found herself smiling like an idiot, thinking about how she could never get tired of hearing the word fall out of Clarke’s mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe this story is almost done already! only one chapter left! this chapter actually includes a hint about the next one ;)  
> as always i'd love to hear what you thought of this chap either in the comments below or on tumblr  
> started to think of a new fic now and definitely open to ideas!


	13. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 9 months later....

_9 Months Later_

It was Arrival Day and the campers were just starting to pull up to Camp Rothenberg with their parents. Anya loved arrival day. She loved to watch returning get excited over seeing old friends and the new girls get excited about coming to camp for the first time. Ever since she’d taken over from Indra as head of the camp though, Anya hadn’t been able to get to know individual campers as much as she had when she was a counselor.

  
As Anya was thinking about her days as a counselor, she noticed two current counselors, and her former campers, off to the side, hidden just out of view of the parents behind the art cabin. Anya rolled her eyes at the two counselors who were acting more like hormonal teenagers rather than her twenty-year-old employees and approached them.

  
After reaching the art cabin, Anya cleared her throat, causing Clarke and Lexa to pull their tongues out of each other’s mouths while still remaining in each other’s arms.

  
“Please tell me that I’m not going to regret putting you as co-counselors in the Grounder cabin,” Anya sighed.

“Trust me, keeping us together was probably the best idea,” Clarke asked. “This way you don’t have to worry about confused campers wondering why someone who isn’t their counselor was coming out of their counselor’s cabin in the mornings.”  
Anya gave Clarke a stern looking.

“Don’t worry Anya, it’ll be fine, I promise,” Lexa assured. “We’re getting it all out now. Going to different colleges, we haven’t spent much time together since camp last summer.”

Anya narrowed her eyes at the girls, seeing right through them. “Lexa, you do realize that when I hired you, you both told me what colleges you attend? Polis University is in the same city as TonDC College.”

Lexa’s cheeks grew red, caught in her lie, “Well we just finished finals, so it has been a while.”

Anya watched as Clarke laughed before kissing her girlfriend’s pink cheeks. She shook her head at them before pointing to the entourage of cars pulling up to camp. “Save it for after lights out please, we’ve got campers to check in.”

The girls sighed and pulled away from their hidden spot, gathering their clipboards to help the campers find their cabin assignments. Anya watched as Lexa subconsciously reached for Clarke’s hand as they walked away from her. If Anya hadn’t watched Lexa grow up, she would never have guessed that the Lexa from one year earlier was the same one as the one in front of her. Lexa from a year ago was stiff and rigid, unapproachable and bitter, while this Lexa yearned for the touch of her girlfriend without even thinking about it. This Lexa loved the same way the other Lexa was afraid to. This was the Lexa she saw grow up.

“I think Anya just gave us permission to continue where we left off, granted after lights out,” Clarke smirked as they walked away, earning a playful shove from Lexa.

The decision to return that summer to Camp Rothenberg as counselors had been an easy one. While Octavia had gotten a job at a local gym and Raven had an engineering internship, neither Lexa nor Clarke liked the idea of not returning to camp. Besides, it was an excuse for them to spend every day together, not that they hadn’t back at school.

Just as the girls reached the growing crowd of campers and their parents, a teenage girl came running towards them. Both Clarke and Lexa grinned as they recognized Tris, but their grins turned to looks of confusion as they saw the look of exasperation on the girl’s face.

“Tris!” Clarke exclaimed, “What’s up? You not excited to be in the Grounder cabin?” Both Clarke and Lexa had been insistent that Tris, Reese and Charlotte all be placed together in the Grounder cabin.

“Well yeah, but please tell me there’s a way I don’t have to share a cabin with those two,” she gestured over her shoulder at two girls who were so close they were basically molding in to one person. Now fifteen, Reese and Charlotte had both grown in the past nine months, and Reese had even cut her dark hair so it fell just above her shoulder, but both counselors recognized them right away.

“Ahh, young love,” Clarke sighed.

Tris continued to pout, eliciting laughter from Lexa and Clarke.

“Make sure you claim the middle bed in the tent so you know when one of them moves,” Lexa suggested. Tris sighed and walked away. Lexa had a feeling that the Reese and Charlotte situation would cause some problems that summer, but it was nothing she and Clarke couldn’t deal with.

The girls finished checking in all the Grounders when Harper came up to them. Her cousin, Monroe, had an internship that summer so Harper had been paired with a new counselor in the Sky cabin. It would work well, Harper was good with the little kids.

“I have to go run help Anya with something real quick, do you two mind checking in my last camper?” Harper asked as she pointed to a woman and her daughter, hidden behind an open car door. They were the last to arrive.

Neither Clarke nor Lexa thought about the fact that it was odd that Harper had asked them both to check in the straggling camper. Clarke took the clipboard from Harper and scanned down the list, trying to find out the name of the final camper. Her eyes fell on the name at the same moment the girl and her mom closed the car door and came in to full view and Lexa saw them.

“Lexa it’s…” began Clarke at them same moment Lexa said:

“Ruth.”

Clarke looked up and watched as the woman walked beside the seven-year-old whose red hair swung in two long braids. Ruth held a large duffel while her daughter struggled to car an oversized and well-loved elephant.

The sight didn’t make Lexa sad the way she would have expected it to. Her heart had skipped a beat and her mouth went dry, but there was also something so innocent and happy about the scene. The young girl was obviously excited about attending camp. Lexa wondered if Ruth had told her younger daughter about how much her older daughter had loved camp. She could picture the little girl listening to stories about the sister she barely had the chance to know and holding the elephant that had accompanied her sister to years of camp.

Ruth recognized Clarke and Lexa immediately and a huge smile erupted on her face and as soon as she was close enough, she dropped her daughter’s duffel to envelop both counselors in to one big hug.

“Anya told me you were going to be counselors and you have no idea how excited I am to see you!” she exclaimed. Anya had clearly kept the younger Crewe’s impending arrival to the camp a secret for this exact reason. She’d wanted it to be a surprise.

The younger girl stood close to her mother, not recognizing the girls.

Lexa made the first move. She crouched down so she was on eye level with the girl. “Hi Cassie, my name is Lexa. I know you probably don’t remember me, but me and Clarke,” she gestured to the blonde, “were best friends with your sister.”

The girl's chocolate brown eyes widened at Lexa’s statement. They may not have been the same as Costia’s green eyes, but otherwise their expression was the same. “You knew Costia?”

“I knew her very well,” Lexa grinned. “And I bet she’s really excited that you’re going to camp here.”

The young girl narrowed her eyes in confusion, “How can she be excited? She died.”

Lexa’s heart tightened, but only briefly. “Can I tell you a secret?” she asked. After Cassie nodded she continued, “Cos is an angel now, and I think she spends a lot of time at this lake.” She gestured around her.

“Really?” her eyes widened.

“Really,” Lexa grinned before standing back up. She didn’t have to look at Ruth to know that she was smiling at her.

“We’ll keep an extra eye out for her,” Clarke spoke to Ruth.

Harper returned a moment later and saw the seen unfolding before her. She may not have met Costia until she was eleven, but even she could tell that the red-headed seven-year-old was the spitting image of her older sister and she offered to bring her over to the other Sky people. Cassie hugged her mom and waved to Lexa and Clarke before following Harper.

Lexa watched as Cassie approached her cabin and sat down with the only other two girls who didn’t seem to be talking to anyone. She instinctively reached down and grasped Clarke’s hand, not having to look down to intertwine their fingers. They watched as Cassie introduced herself to the other two loners and smiled as the three shifted to form a makeshift circle. The fact that one of the other girls was blonde and the other brunette didn’t escape any of their notices.

When they turned back to face each other, Ruth’s gaze drifted down to Lexa and Clarke’s intertwined hands. A soft smile fell across her face as she looked up. It seemed like in that moment that everything was coming together. Everything was coming full circle, certain stories beginning while others were resolved.

“I’m really happy for you both,” Ruth cooed, “And I know Costia is too. She said once, when she was maybe thirteen, that she knew that you two would end up together eventually.” At thirteen, that was two years before Lexa and Costia got together. “I’m sure she’d happy she was right.”

The girls smiled back, not needing to say anything.

After Ruth pulled away in her car, Lexa and Clarke stood waiting an extra moment, their fingers still tangled together. They knew they had campers they needed to bring to the Grounder campsite and activities to plan, but they gave themselves that moment. They didn’t need to say anything, both knew they were remembering the girl that brought them together. Neither was sad and neither blamed themselves for Costia’s death any longer. They had accepted it and learned to live in the moment in honor of the past. In that moment they had each other, and honestly, that was all that mattered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's all folks! I loved writing this so much and I really appreciate all the views, kudos and comments! I would love to hear what you all thought about the story as a whole, the epilogue and the writing style (the inclusion of flashbacks, etc.)
> 
> I'm definitely going to write more Clexa pics now that I have two under my belt, but I don't have any immediate ideas so i'd LOVE to hear any ideas anyone has! you can put them in the comments below or message me on tumblr! I'm open to anything from one-shots to full fics, au's, additions to canon, etc.
> 
> thanks again for all your support!

**Author's Note:**

> find me at madgirlbackhome.tumblr.com


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